9 Facebook Marketing Strategies to Build Super Fans

Are you looking to attract high-quality and loyal fans to your Facebook page? Without quality fans, your Facebook marketing efforts can fizzle out quickly.

Keep reading to discover nine ways you can build loyal fans who’ll love your business.

Moontoast shows how a fan's level of interest with a brand can move from light to heavy engagement.

Moontoast says Super Fans are Facebook users who have given you access to their data via their Facebook profile, purchased from you and also encouraged another fan to purchase from you as well. There’s no doubt we all want an abundance of Super Fans!

So how do you move a Potential Fan all the way up the ranks to Super Fan?

For starters, it takes time. Facebook success rarely happens overnight and unless you are a huge brand like Zappos or Target, patience, persistence, and hustle are all required to create a successful Facebook page.

There are also specific actions you can take to create a thriving Facebook page full of Super Fans.

The following nine core strategies will help you streamline your Facebook activity and turn your Facebook page into a success story.

#1: Give your page a human touch

The most successful companies on Facebook are those that step out from behind their logo and let the people behind the brand represent their Facebook page. The goal is to communicate with your fans as though you were talking to your friends, and let your personality come through in each post.

One of the ways to do this is to step away from your niche once in a while and show your personal side through entertaining posts and photos. Change things up a bit and share details about your experiences and everyday life.

Have you taken a fun trip recently? Post some pictures of your vacation to let your fans see a different side of you. Or maybe you see something funny while you’re out and about—share it! Snap a photo of it and post it to your wall with a fun caption.

Guy Kawasaki, author of Enchantment, does this on a regular basis and his fans love it. The reason we are intrigued with Guy’s posts is because we get to see the real side of him, not just the author/expert side of Guy.

When you visit Guy's Facebook page, you'll often find posts and photos that give you a peek at Guy's entertaining journeys outside of work.

 

Quick Tip: Test out the 80/20 Rule. When posting to your Facebook page, 80% of the time focus on your business, and 20% of the time mix things up and show your fans and followers a different side of you—the personal side. Share with them photos and details of who you are outside of work. Remember, no one wants to do business with a brand; we all want to do business with real people!

#2: Become a content machine

Always make sure that your content educates, entertains and empowers your fans to keep them engaged and coming back for more. The key to a successful content strategy is to consistently create new content and mix up your media often.

For example, some of your fans might respond better to video than text, while others might be drawn to the images in your posts. To make sure you’re attracting the attention of your diverse group of fans, post your content in a variety of ways.

iPhone Life Magazine does a great job of always showing fun images with each text post. Images and videos are the top two types of content that Facebook users gravitate to the most.

One simple way to do this is mix up your blog posts by posting written blogs, video blogs and audio posts. Regularly drive traffic from your Facebook page to your blog to introduce your fans to a variety of content.

Quick Tip: To keep your team on track, create an editorial calendar to track when you will post content, the type of content you plan to post and who’s responsible for content creation. Check out this post by Denise Wakeman for instructions on how to create an editorial calendar.

#3: Cultivate engagement with two-way dialogue

Imagine this: You haven’t talked to your good friend in a while, so you call her up. When she answers the phone you say, “Hi! How’ve you been?” But before your friend can answer, you hang up the phone. That would be odd, right?

Well, essentially that’s what you are doing each time you post a Facebook update and then instantly move on to a new task before waiting for a few fan responses so you can engage in a conversation.

Make sure you never miss an opportunity to thank a fan for reaching out. Replying to your fans' posts shows them you really do care about what they have to say.

Real success on Facebook happens when you mirror real-life situations. Don’t “post and ditch;”  instead, stay around a few minutes to get involved in the conversation. True engagement happens in the “back and forth.”

Quick Tip: People love to talk about themselves, so craft your posts and questions around your fans to get them talking. Ask for your fans’ feedback, suggestions and solutions to challenges. You can learn a lot about your fans when you take the time to listen!

#4: Create consistent calls to action

Facebook gives brands the optimal opportunity to create genuine relationships with their prospects and customers. But it’s also a great platform for moving your fans to action. One of the best ways to move a Potential Fan to a Super Fan is to start out with simple calls to action.

To do this, start out by posting valuable content, such as interesting articles and videos related to your niche, and accompany this content with simple calls to action such as “click this” or “watch this.” The valuable content will show your fans that you’re an authority and consistently post good stuff.

Also, consider offering discounts and specials or ask your fans to sign up for your newsletter. These are all low-investment calls to action that will help you build trust and affinity over time.

Zappos does a great job of mixing up their calls to action on their Facebook page. Some include value-added content as you can see above with the call to "CLICK PLAY" to participate in the live fashion Q&A video. Others are more promotional, such as "Click here to check out our new summer flip flops!"

Quick Tip: Lead the way with free valuable content and later offer opportunities that require more of a commitment from your fans (such as giving their name and email in exchange for a giveaway or purchasing a product). Offering free webinars and teleseminars that provide training up front are great ways to promote your programs and services without having to sell too hard on your Facebook page.

#5: Make word-of-mouth advocacy easy

Studies have shown that social media users tend to trust their friends and peers more than they trust brands. It makes sense. If you were looking to try out a new restaurant, would you rather get a recommendation from a friend who just had a great meal or the restaurant that’s promoting its latest special?

Word of mouth matters, especially on Facebook. To get your fans talking about you, the key is to make it easy to spread the word.

One great way to do this is to create a contest or promotion that rewards fans for spreading the word. By using a platform such as Wildfire, you can track and reward the fans who invite their friends to join your contest.

This sweepstakes by Kudzu promises extra chances to win for every friend you encourage to enter the contest.

Quick Tip: Think of your ideal audience before you create a special promotion or campaign. What would get them excited to spread the word? When you make the experiences on your page about your fans rather than about your brand, your fans become more invested and engaged and in turn are more eager to tell their friends about you.

#6: Encourage fan-to-fan conversations

Enhance your fans’ experience by creating a community that encourages your fans to interact with each other. One surefire way to do this is to spotlight your fans. When you create opportunities such as “fan of the week” or recognize top contributors, you are giving your fans an opportunity to get to know each other.

Social Media Examiner regularly highlights a fan of the week on their Facebook page and always makes a point to link to their fans’ websites to give them free exposure.

Pinterest

Pinterest is now a top 10 social network (more traffic than Google Plus in November 2011!) that’s getting the attention of everyone from artists to the media to venture capitalists (who invested $27 million in the company). BrandChannel says “Pinterest is at the crossroads of social and style.” ReadWriteWeb attributes their success to the way the tool leverages everything that’s hot in social right now: great user experience, a clean retro visual design, content curation, social collaboration and subscription – and calls everyone who isn’t using it “a big dork.”

Of course, none of us want to own a “dorky” social media presence – so I wanted to put together a little introductory guide to Pinterest for hotels. I’ve had a lot of fun experimenting with this site recently, and since it’s likely to be a key social communications tool in the months ahead, I think you may enjoy exploring it as well.

What is Pinterest?

“Think of it as a virtual pinboard,” says the Pinterest team. Heather Allard explains the opportunity well:

If you had the opportunity to make your business part of someone’s vision board, would you do it? Pinterest is that vision board. Consider it a visual buffet—a look book—of all the things we crave in life….

By curating cool content through images, the tool provides a powerful way to visually communicate lifestyle messages that are so important for many brands in the hospitality business. Plus, it’s a powerful way to feel the pulse of what’s trending – and influence some of those trends.

“Pinterest allows us to see what trends and styles the community likes based on engagement – likes and repins,” Nordstrom’s social media manager Shauna Causey told BrandChannel. Creativity-online.com commented that “Images are a great way to share ideas and trends in the social media landscape.”

How do you share photos?

Pinterest provides their users with a number of toolsto make sharing easy, including a “Pin It” button for your browser and a free iPhone app.

I find this to be the easiest way to share things as I’m browsing the web….

Hotel websites can use the Pinterest “Follow” button to encourage subscriptions and the “Pin It” button to encourage pinning and re-pinning from their site. Since this is a photo-sharing network, it’s one more reason to use stunning photography on your website. Photos shared on Pinterest contain a link back to the source site – which can be a good source of inbound traffic.

“…Consider Pinterest a ‘visual testimonial.’ When users pin things from your site, they’re showing the world (and their Pinterest followers) that they believe in your company, your service or your product. The more Pinterest interest you get, the more word of mouth about you will increase.” – Heather Allard

How can hotels use Pinterest?

Think about lifestyle content you can share that would interest your core audience online. Co-founder Evan Sharp gave some examples of how other companies are doing this in his interview with Mashable: “A good example of that is Whole Foods. They’re not just sharing the produce available at Whole Foods, they’re sharing [images of] a healthy lifestyle. West Elm isn’t just sharing the furniture they sell, they’re sharing interior design tips. And the Today Show isn’t just pinning that day’s guests [to promote the episode]. For most consumer brands, the idea behind your brand makes sense on Pinterest.”

Let’s take a look at how some hotels are using Pinterest….

Gansevoort Hotels shares places, spaces and style they love:

SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills shares books worth reading, food worth eating, and more:

And finally, Hotel Indigo does a great job of “guestsourcing” – using photos that guests have tweeted or uploaded as a Pinterest board:

You can see more by visiting Pinterest.com. Joining the network currently requires an invitation from an existing member. If you need one, email me: josiah at reviewpro

So what is the difference between a Facebook page and a Google+ page for Hotels?

Hotels now can take advantage of Google+ 

• Google Plus has the +1 button, while Facebook has the like button;
• Google Plus has Hangouts, while Facebook has video chat and group chat with Skype; and
• Google Plus has Circles, while Facebook has smart friend lists.

You can create a Google+ page for your business right now if you want. We already have a post up on How To Create A Google+ Page. Once you do, use these 11 tips to get your business started and moving in the right direction.

1. Use Google+ as a Page

To manage, edit or cruise Google+ AS your page, simply go to your Google+ profile homepage and click on the small down arrow under your name.

2. Add Images To Your Photostrip

To add images to create a ‘photostrip’ effect, click on the blue ‘edit profile’ button and then click ‘Add some photos here’. (http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk/blog/how-to-customise-your-google-plusprofile-page/)

3. Use Public Albums

Be sure to share photos with all followers, as albums in the Photos tab are visible only to people with whom they’ve been shared.

4. Use Photo Geo Location

If you want to show your hotel geo location information in newly uploaded albums and photos, be sure to check the box under the ‘Photos’ tab when editing your page. (Shown below)

Geo location check-box feature in Google+.

5. Fill Out Page Circles

As your brand page, you can start adding other Google+ members and pages to your ‘circles.’ In order to add people to your circles, they need to add your page to their circles first. The page circle options include:  Following, Customers, VIP’s and Team Members. There are several options allowing you to control what follower info users can view on your page’s sidebar.

6. Know How Comments Work

Your personal G+ profile can comment on brand pages, even if you haven’t followed them. However, I wasn’t able to comment on a brand page AS another brand page, whether I was following that brand or not.

7. Host a Hangout

Google is pushing ‘Hangouts’ or video chats for businesses. This feature allows your hotel brand to start live, face-to-face conversations with followers. The Muppets were one of the first to promote a live hangout on their Google+ page. You can see a video snippet about the event along with other Google Plus Hangouts here: http://www.youtube.com/googleplushangouts

8. Connect to Other Platforms

The ability to update Facebook and Twitter from Google+ is on the way. Google has given limited access to their Google+ API to developers and I’m sure additional access will be granted soon. All the API and geeky tech stuff you ever want to know can be found here:  Google+ Platform Developers - https://developers.google.com/+/overview. If you use Chrome, you can install one of my fave Google+ sharing apps, Publish Sync. This app allows you to update both Facebook and Twitter from your Google+ profile. Currently, the app doesn’t work for my brand page, but it could soon.

9. Disable Comments Option

You can disable comments on posts you share via your Brand page. When you disable comments on a post, other people will no longer be able to leave comments (but they can still +1 and reshare it).

10. Plus One or Circle

There are currently 2 calls to action for your potential followers: Have them ‘circle’ you (or add your brand page to their circles) and +1 your page. It’s unclear currently how Google will leverage those who are +1-ing your page as it appears simply taking that action doesn’t allow the user to get any brand updates.

As mentioned above, Google is calculating how many users +1 your page into their search results. And they are still the masters at search. So it makes sense that this will be important in Google Search. We will have to wait and see.

11. Custom URL

Google isn’t yet allowing for customizing your brand page URL. However, there have been several tools created for that purpose. I used this one to shorten my brand’s page: http://gplus.to/. 

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Read Original Article or visit Hotel Marketing Argentina

Export Email Addresses of your Facebook Contacts

There’s  a simple (and perfectly legal) workaround that can help you easily download all your friends email addresses from Facebook’s walled garden.

The trick, as you can see in the video, is actually quite simple.

Go to address.yahoo.com and click the Facebook icon. A login dialog should pop-up, just sign-in with your Facebook credentials and within seconds, you entire Facebook address book will be available inside your Yahoo Mail Account. Once the import is done, click this link to download a CSV file with the email addresses of all your Facebook contacts to your desktop.

You can then import the CSV file into Gmail Contacts, LinkedIn, your phone address book or any of the social sites where you want to connect with your existing Facebook circle.

7 errores que debemos evitar al crear una página de aterrizaje para su hotel.

 1: Llamado a la acción poco claro 

Asegúrese de que el tráfico se envía a una página donde está claramente definida la acción deseada. Si buscamos por ejemplo reservar una noche , entonces ponemos un gran botón visible que permite al cliente a reservar una habitacion .

 2: las distracciones visuales son Demasiadas 

Una página llena de distracciones visuales , si sus fotos de los productos o banners intermitentes o los anuncios de AdSense son muchos, es probable que no conviertan.Mantener la página simple, limpia, y al punto.

 3: demasiado texto 

Una página de destino no debe ser con mucho texto. Utilice frases cortas y simples, y transmitir el mensaje con viñetas.

4: No mantener las promesas 

Su Adcopy dice: Compre 2 y obtenga 1 gratis, pero si esta misma oferta, no se puede encontrar en la página de destino, que no están cumpliendo esa promesa. Si usted tiene una oferta atractiva en su Adcopy, asegúrese de que es fácil de encontrar en la página de destino.

 5: Formularios muy largos 

Mantener las formas lo más breve y conciso posible. Sólo ponga  campos  absolutamente  esenciales

6: Reductores de riesgo 

Si su negocio está acreditado por el BBB, o si su sitio es seguro y prueba de hackers a diario, asegúrese de incluir los logotipos de la parte superior.

 7: Indicadores de Confianza 

Por ejemplo, si el nombre de Conde Nast menciono su hotel como uno de los “500 Mejores Hoteles del Mundo”, y agregó este indicador de confianza sin duda ayudará a aumentar la confianza, y seguro que la conversión tambien.
En resumen, la construcción de una página de destino es una necesidad absoluta para el tráfico de PPC. Puede atender a las necesidades del usuario, basándose en su búsqueda. Por ejemplo, si alguien escribe “bariloche hotel económico”, una página se puede crear con el top 5 razones por las que su hotel es de gran valor. Cuando un usuario se puede conectar emocionalmente y se ven como el público en su página, que es cuando se sabe que tiene una página de aterrizaje ganadora. Por último, no basta con crear una página de destino e igonorarla Siempre pruebe los diferentes elementos para ver si el cambio puede aumentar aún más la conversión.

Hotel SEO Factors

On-site SEO factors-

• Use hyphens or commas as “Page Title” or header separators - not underscores. 
• If possible use a file extension (.html) or at least have mime type to help Google and also users.
• You can “unleash” hundreds of pages (obviously all with great content) at once with no penalty -thousands of new pages, however, “may” flag up for review. 
• A HTML Sitemap is still recommended by Google for googlebots & for users. 
• Google does not “penalise” duplicate content - it will just show one page over another.  If there are 3 pages of duplicate content on your website it generally will only show 1 result on a Google results page, (unless the search is incredibly longtail and specific – but of course we now get the “omitted results” link displayed). Google just shows the content that it feels is most relevant to the users search. New algorithms take into account things like content age (so original content is more likely to rank higher). (Greg gives the best explanation, not Matt) 
• A webpage being 4 levels down in the URL (example.com/some-news/2011/march/a-great-news-article.htm) is just as valuable as a webpage 1 level down (example.com/a-great-news-article.htm) IF linked to from a top level page. 
• In SEO terms,“example.com/tools/hammers/a-great-hammer” is no different than having  ”example.com/tools-hammer-a-great-hammer”. In user terms, however, it can start to look spammy to have multiple keywords separated by a hyphen. 
• “Read More” dropdowns CAN be seen as hidden text (blackhat) if large areas of text are hidden with only a small area of visible text. If there are reams and reams of text hidden below a javascript/accordion type button with only a few words always visible then it will show as being hidden text to Google. Instead use tabs to show as much content as possible that switches with tabbed buttons. 
• Using the visitors IP address to change the title & heading to the local language/dialect is perfectly acceptable. Geo-location content is not classed as content cloaking. 
• It is better to have keywords in the URL as it is taken as a factor in the ranking results, albeit only one of over 200. 

Links and off-site factors

• Google will not penalise a website that uses the “no follow” attribute on all of its outbound links – 
• On-site links are no longer restricted to 100 links per page (as Google guidelines used to state). It is perfectly reasonable to have more if the page and site is rich in content. Common sense is needed, however, as 1000′s of links on a page could indicate a link farm. Also keep in mind that pagerank on a page is divided out to the links on the page (a PR4 page with 40 links will mean each link gets a 1/40th chunk of the PR) so it may be beneficial to have only important pages linked to from a high PR site. 
• Links at the bottom of the page are treated differently than ones at the top or within the content body.
• The amount of 301 redirects to a domain will not penalise you. 301 redirects carry link text (anchor text) but if there are too many new links being generated to a 301 redirected URL it could look shady. 
• More from Hotel SEO at Hotel Marketing Argentina.