#aidea digital

A couple of months ago, we talked about ways to engage your fan base on Facebook. Several readers asked how B2B companies could take advantage of the tips we shared, and I know that some organizations are still wondering if it even makes sense to try to reach a business audience on Facebook.

In my view, Facebook presents a unique opportunity to connect with and educate your target market in a way that your website and even your blog can’t match. The trick is coming up with meaningful content that people will want to share, and that brings them back again and again.

Here are some tips for creating a powerful presence on Facebook that will engage a business audience.

1. Become an Industry Resource

Whatever business you’re in, chances are that you’re keeping up with industry news and maybe even writing about it on your blog. You’re likely running educational webinars or speaking at industry conferences. You’re also engaging with customers, helping to solve their business problems and maybe even documenting the process with case studies. This means that you probably already have a large number of resources to share. Why not funnel this content onto Facebook and make your Page the go-to place for insights and information on your particular industry?

A good example of this approach is 360i, an award-winning digital marketing agency. Tapping the deep expertise of its team, 360i keeps its Facebook Page updated with industry insights on topics that matter to the brand marketing audience, such as how businesses are taking advantage of Google Places or new trends with Foursquare.

The 360i team showcases industry research and reviews cool new technologies that marketers can use in their programs. They post a weekly summary of all the important industry news, and provide readers with astute commentary that puts the news into context. In short, they’ve positioned themselves as experts in digital marketing and become a valuable resource for their target audience on Facebook.

2. Engage the Community

In the past, your customers may have had little interaction with each other, and the outside world could only see a list of customers on your website (if you put them there). As a marketer, you wouldn’t know what all your customers were doing with your products, or even how to reach them.

Now, you can use Facebook to engage directly with your customers and make them part of your marketing efforts. For example, you can ask customers to share their successes on your wall and get feedback on new product features. You can encourage them to recognize great service people and reward them for their input with a discount or other promotion. You can also solicit customer references for case studies and media opportunities and find out who’s doing something innovative with your product.

BigCommerce, a company that offers e-commerce shopping cart software, routinely reaches out to its Facebook fan base to identify reference customers and uncover interesting use cases for the media. For example, when the company wanted to promote the success of its recently launched Facebook shopping application, they simply posted a query on their page asking which customers had seen a boost in sales from the application and who would be willing to talk to the media. Within 24 hours, the company had generated fifteen new customer references and were able to immediately turn this information into media coverage.

3. Expand Beyond Your Wall

There are now a host of different applications for Facebook that let you do more than post on your wall. If you’re selling B2B products online, you can set up a shopping tab on your page to drive traffic to your e-commerce site and encourage viral sharing of your products. Get Satisfaction, a popular social CRM and customer support platform, recently launched a Facebook version of its application so your customers can ask questions and get support right on your Facebook Page.

You can also set up a promotions tab using Fan Appz to offer special deals to your Facebook fans and even use these deals to support lead generation programs. For example, if you sell software licenses, you could offer a 20% discount on the annual fee for people who enter the promotion code at an upcoming webinar or bring the coupon to your booth at a conference.

4. Lighten Up

While many of us use Facebook in our day-to-day business, the vast majority are usually there to have fun and engage with friends. So no matter how serious your product is, inject some humor and levity into your page.

For example, if you’re selling enterprise security software, why not do a poll where people rate the most evil tech baddies in films like Hackers and The Terminator? If you’re a marketing agency, you could do a “Which Mad Men Character Are You?” quiz that assigns users an identity based on their answers, which can then be shared with their friends. Just keep it relevant to your industry and safe-for-work.

And even if your website needs to stay “all business,” Facebook is where you can give a face and personality to the company. You could do an “employee of the month” feature on the page where you profile someone who’s making a big difference at the company or who achieved a significant milestone. Include photos or even a short video.

You can highlight what the company or employees are doing in the community or in support of a particular cause, which has the added benefit of putting the weight of your fan base behind these efforts. You can also consider posting behind-the-scenes photos of engineers hard at work on the next product release, or a smiling customer service rep on the phone with a client. All of these ideas will help your fans make a stronger and more personal connection with your company.

Think branding is only for large multi-national corporations? Think again. Here are 9 easy tips you can use to grow your brand with your customers.

The design of your logo really doesn’t matter. Would you choose MSN as your search engine over Google because of their logo? No, having a nice professional logo is great, but it very rarely increases sales. I’m all for a professional logo, but don’t think you need to spend a fortune on it. It’s more important to include your logo on every piece of communication. Put it on business cards, letterhead, envelopes, invoices, yellow page ads, building signage, newsletters, etc…

Have a professional website. It’s not just good enough to just have a website, you must reflect your brand image. If your known as a top notch photographer, the last thing you want is a website designed 10 years ago. It doesn’t reflect well on you. Everyone, yes everyone, uses the web today to check references. If someone recommends your service, you can almost guarantee that they will go online to look for you. Your website design should be updated at least every two years to stay current.

Blogs are good. Blogs help your business on multiple levels. First off, valuable content on a consistent basis will make you look like an expert. People are looking for experts, not apprentices. The software that powers blogs has multiple advantages. It’s very easy to publish. It’s a database driven environment where style is separate from content so you will not need to go back to your web design agency for every little change. And use of tags and sitemaps make basic search engine optimization easy. But the real reason blogs are great is that they enable conversation. Two-way dialog is much more valuable than a company that just dumps messaging and collateral on their customers.

Blogs are good, but they’re just one tool. A blog should not be your sole marketing strategy. You should have a comprehensive multi-touch marketing plan to get your value proposition in front of your target audience. This can take many forms. You can launch a direct mail campaign, email campaign, host a webinar, sponsor a local event, attend a trade show, attend networking events, cold call prospects, win awards, etc… There are a thousand different ways for you to be noticed. You have to find the best combination of methods for your strategic goals. Data shows that people need to be exposed to a brand at least seven times before they buy. If you simply do one touch and stop, you’re wasting valuable budget dollars and probably wondering why your efforts are not successful.

Prepare a one page corporate overview. This one pager will be vital as a leave behind when you meet a prospect. Use short sentences in short paragraphs – people like to read quickly. Also make it very conversational; it’s not a white paper. Your one page overview should include your value proposition, target audience benefits, previous audience experience and a mini-case study – and don’t forget your contact information.

Participate in local business events. And by participate, I mean be on a committee. Just showing up at events is great, but you’re just a face in the crowd. Ask to be on one of the committees. Believe it or not, it’s as simple as just asking most of time. Groups are looking for volunteer help and it’s a great way to elevate your status and visibility among the entire organization.

Do what you say you’re going to do. I know it may sound like common sense, but one of the primary drivers of brand loyalty is a consistent experience. If you say you’re going to have the photographs ready on a set day, be sure they are ready. Nothing leaves a bad taste in someone’s mouth like missed expectations. Positive experiences lead to good feelings which lead to telling their friends. But don’t forget that bad experiences spread much faster and are harder to overcome – if you get a chance at all.

Stand for something. People latch on to something they can understand and appreciate. If you’re trying to be everything to everybody, chances are you’ll attract no one. If you think it’s too controversial to choose a niche, remember the power of being seen as an expert. Experts are not good at everything, they’re awesome at one thing. This allows you to better position yourself and charge more for your services. People seek out experts, not generalists.

Realize that you’re not in control of your brand. That’s right, you only set the direction for your brand. Your actual brand image is determined by your audience. You can use these tips to ensure alignment between your desired brand image and your actual brand image in the minds of your customers. Branding isn’t a one shot deal, it’s an on-going juggling act of marketing, research and conversation. If you’re not tapping into those conversations with your audience, how do you know what their real impression of you is? How will you know how to address it? Brand growth comes from alignment. You have to ensure that your actions, stationary, website and marketing efforts put out the right image. But you cannot stop there; Those are pre-sales activities that get you noticed and hopefully bought. You also have to ensure that all actions and engagements during the sale and post-sale are positive and in line with your desired brand image. If your audience has a different view of you than you’d like, then you need help. And it’s probably best to bring in an outside perspective.

BONUS TIP #10: Branding is as much about your people as anything else. Never forget that the best interactions come from one-on-one conversations between executives, employees, suppliers, and customers. Employees that want to help and do the best job possible go a long way.

We develop and carry out the most effective digital marketing strategy for your business enterprises.  Our process consists of

Discussing your objectives, targeted market, audience and competition

Evaluating your existing marketing and web presence

Analyzing your web traffic and online campaign performance if you have exiting web analytics

Focusing on areas that we can improve, innovating and assessing what can be integrated into digital marketing strategy

Selecting the best internet platforms to integrate into online marketing strategy

If you don’t have a website, we will make it. If you have a website, we will help you redesign and optimize so that you get the most out of it.  But beyond your website, we’ll broaden the scope of your web presence with search engine optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM).  In today’s social media driven world, we will build a social media strategy that will engage your customers to interact with your company.   And beyond those immediate goals, we will help you form deeper, longer lasting connections with your customers via newly optimized email marketing with targeted offers.

Our emphasis is on acquiring new customers while nurturing your existing base.  For our clients we have:

Created digital Marketing and Brand Management strategy integrated with social media and e-commerce.

Managed, created and executed integrated Marketing, Digital Marketing and Branding strategy for successful market placement of existing products and new product launches.

Managed multiple campaigns; directed, planned and coordinated all on-line and digital functions, creative and content

Managed and created multiple digital channels (websites, social media, display ads, email, and others).

Focused heavily on analytics, and making strategic decision based on data to improve campaign performance and sales.

Identified new growth opportunities and developed and implemented related digital strategies.

In support of digital marketing strategy, our accomplishments include:

Building strategic websites, micro sites and landing pages

Building social media presence

Building email marketing platforms

Search Engine Optimization

Brand Management

Lead generation programs

Online advertising

Developing e-Commerce platforms

Web and performance analytics

Facebook Brand Timelines: 6 Big Changes Every Marketer Needs to Understand

Today Facebook announced to brand marketers the world over that, within the month, everything they knew about fan Pages on Facebook would be overturned. While you get your brand ready for the new Timeline format, here are six important changes to keep top-of-mind.

1. Updated Look and Feel

What’s new: The format of Timeline for brands is quite similar to Timeline for personal profiles. It employs a cover photo at the top of the Page, and the Page is separated into two main columns by a dividing line, which represents the passage of time. This format provides brands with new options for self-expression: They can outline their corporate history with milestones (such as product launches, store openings, etc.) to construct a narrative for their audience. 



Recommendation: Milestones present an important and dramatic opportunity to educate the public, humanize the brand and remove a perception of corporate anonymity. Our analyses of Page engagement have continually shown that brands posting content that depicts behind-the-scenes activities, exclusive updates or promotions encourages user interactions and promotes higher engagement rates. Using interesting milestones to craft the story of the brand over time (and updating the Timeline with new milestones as they happen) can help to stimulate conversations around major achievements.

2. Reduced Tab Visibility

What’s new: The new Timeline format does not have the left-side panel of links, which could include hundreds of different tabs. While applications still exist, they’ll display differently, in rectangular panels underneath the cover photo. The width of the Timeline and the space allocated for native apps like Photos means that only three tab panels are viewable at any given time. To see more, users must expand the tab panel by clicking a drop-down box. 


Recommendation: For marketers, this major change means that the three above-fold tab apps need to be considered carefully — this will be one of the first things users see when interacting with your brand on Facebook. Brands will want to switch up which tabs are visible “above the fold,” according to current company objectives or project popularity. A good Page analytics tool will be useful for determining which tab to promote on a day-to-day basis.



3. No Default Landing Page


What’s new: With the new Timeline Page format, you will no longer be able to set a default landing Page, a favored feature for many savvy brands. The option was one of the primary ways to control the first (branded) impression a user encountered. Since there are no more tab Pages, there is no way to set one as a default. This will drastically change user impressions when they first visit a brand’s Timeline Page. 



Recommendation: You will need to apply new and careful attention to all the top messages in the Timeline, as they will be the first objects seen by visiting users. Likewise, Facebook ads for brands will become ever important, as ads will be one of the major ways brands on Facebook can control a user’s experience. Setting up an advertising campaign for a Facebook promotion or new application will be the only way to guide new and clicking users directly to that application (as landing on this Page cannot be achieved by default). 



4. New Way to Feature Content

What’s new: One major new feature that marketers will love is the ability to “pin” certain posts to the top of the Timeline. Similar to marking a blog post “sticky,” so that it remains at the top of a blog for a specified period of time, pinning a post to the top of Timeline allows it to precede any other content. A pinned post is distinguished by a small, orange flag. Brands can pin only one item at a time, and the pinned item then exists in two locations — as the top item on the Timeline itself, as well as within its chronological place. Once unpinned (which happens automatically when a new item gets pinned, or the item has been pinned for more than seven days), the post remains in the chronology of Timeline posts, but there is no visual history that it was pinned in the past. 



Recommendation: Since you can no longer create a default landing Page, pinning items to the top of the Timeline will become every marketer’s go-to strategy for highlighting new and interesting content. We will begin to see savvy brands design posts specifically to be pinned, whether images, a well-designed call-to-action, a statement about brand value, or a message calling for the user to click one of the tab panels under the cover photo. 



5. Current Tab Content and Applications Become Outdated


What’s new: The new Timeline layout displaces Facebook’s existing Page tab configuration (including a tab’s 520-pixel width), and replaces it with a new 810-pixel layout. As a result, existing Page tab content will look centered in the middle of the 810-pixel layout without any adjustments. All applications that remain on a brand’s Page will need new application icons (the new dimensions are 111×74).



Recommendation: The most pressing updates for brands will be to update the images and tab functionality of the above-fold two apps. As these are the first tabs users will see, they will likely be the first to be interacted with, or entirely ignored if not optimized for the new experience.



6. Private Messages Between Brands and Users

What’s new: Finally, brands will be able to send and receive private messages with users. This allows for much deeper consumer interaction, and will also enable Page managers to take extended customer inquiries off the Timeline and into a private message. 



Recommendation: Be mindful of noise in the Timeline. Since the real estate allocated to each post depends on how engaging it is or how much interaction it has received, it can be easy to clutter your Timeline with customer inquiries. When these inquiries can be better serviced in a more one-on-one manner, reach out to the consumer with a private message and resolve her question. It’s a good opportunity to yield both a happy user and a clean Timeline.



“We have used a fantastic marketing consultant, Tijana Lehtikoski, who has been helping me transform Out of Hand’s marketing approach. She is very skilled in e-marketing design, analysis, strategy and implementation. She has been an amazing resource for me. Highly recommended.”

Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, Good Value

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Tijana is a consummate team player, an avid communicator and a tireless force in bringing news of change and innovation to the marketplace.  Her unique combination of personal and technical skills brings a renewed perspective to every project she masters.”

Greg Campbell, Director, Metso Automation

“I worked with Tijana on two projects this year and plan to use her services in coming years. TIjana is an extremely creative and skilled individual, and her insight into strategic branding and implementation is outstanding. She helped optimize our email marketing as well as our website, and I couldn’t be happier with the result.”

Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, On Time

Amelia Smith-Fazio, PR Director,  Fabrefaction

“Tijana has quickly changed our ability to manage and distribute information to our potential and existing clientele via targeted e-marketing strategy management. The results we’ve experienced are quickly quantifiable and are always clearly presented.

Tijana is constantly providing input and ideas that help us move forward with confidence. She is a kind, creative partner that we value highly.”

Top qualities: Great Results, High Integrity, Expert, Creative

Richard Carvlin, General Manager, gloATL

“During our cooperation, Tijana played an active role in the internal brand launch, setting up a North American brand team for Metso’s Automation business line. In addition to the branding, she has impressed me with her capabilities in e-marketing, where she has developed an efficient solution for product marketing, which has provided measurable results.

Tijana is an active, dedicated, development-minded strategist who sets high standards for her work and expected results. At the same time, she is a true team-player who gets along with different types of people and can attract them to work for the common goal.  I recommend Tijana for branding, e-marketing or marketing in general.”

Kati Renvall, VP, Group Communications, Metso Corporation

  “I worked closely with Tijana since 2006 and had opportunity to have many discussions with her on marketing strategies, branding, and various ongoing activities, specifically cost effective e-Marketing which she has been managing for Metso Automation.

In fact, she created the Metso Automation e-newsletter concept several years ahead of competition, and pioneered it throughout the organization, constantly improving content with the final result of less cost per sales-lead. This has been a very successful campaign for Metso keeping us in-front of the customer in a cost effective manner and with interesting products, solutions, and ideas.

In summary, Tijana is a very creative individual and has excellent grasp of marketing concepts. More importantly, she has skills and the capacity to use her creativity and knowledge to achieve management goals. She has the communication and people skills to be very effective. It is a please to work with her and I have no reservations to recommend her for future in her area of expertise.”

Seyhan, Director, Metso Automation

“I have had the pleasure of working with Tijana for approximately 8 years. Many capital equipment sales leads have been created based upon her work which ultimately led to large sales for the company.

As you will see the excitement she generates from her work will be inspiration for other employees and you will find she will be a great asset to your organization.”