analytics

Launched at the end of March 2012, the Facebook Timeline is a relatively new feature that was imposed on all business pages. As a new addition to the digital marketing realm, using the Timeline is still a learning process for marketers and agencies.

This OMMA Social panel, “What we’ve learned from the brief history of Facebook’s Timeline for brands,” instructs marketers, advertisers, and agencies how to successfully use the Timeline for their brand.

Comprising pros in the marketing field and moderated by Catharine Taylor, a MediaPost columnist, the panel shared best practices: including what to post for best visibility, what graphics to use, and how to measure the results.

The Panelists

Patrick Chen, Manager, Social Product Strategy and Marketing Operations, Clickable
Jill Dodge, Managing Director, Global Marketing, NASDAQ OMX
Julie Fajgenbaum, Group Vice President, Brand Social, American Express OPEN
Fiona Gill, VP, Client Services, Performics
Jeff Ragovin, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Buddy Media

Facebook Timeline layout and how a brand can use it

Timeline moved brand focus from advertising strategy to content generation first and foremost
Takes up a lot of time & most Facebook users usually only see your brand in their feed, most won’t visit your timeline.
Efficient for direct marketers: Empowers brand marketers to test + optimize
Brands can control how to portray themselves
Created an opportunity to reward, engage, and discount loyal customers

Content

Content is crucial on Timeline
Know what you’re selling to optimize social: Dove sells beauty not soap; Starwood sells lifestyle not beds
Pick a theme and what’s engaging & share on relevant platforms
Great content is critical and goes beyond just article generation

Strong Content Creates Engagement

Have a long-term staff/adviser to understand audience better and build community
Photos on Facebook create engagement
Timeline is a retention tool; use it to keep customers

Social analytics for marketers

Metrics: Impressions vs. expressions: use qualitative measure to know the true value of participation
Find key influencers in your Market
Use ad testing to inform your content
Use surveys, offers, pay attention to real-time insights to drive content
Advice on %benchmarks, how to boost engagement, and weigh metrics on Facebook

American Express best practices

American Express creates “content” by asking a question and getting people to talk to one another
Amex does all community management in-house OPEN has 2 people on Facebook and Twitter. They’re trained by PR & legal

The creation of the Facebook Timeline has made it very important for marketers, advertisers, and agencies to focus on strong, engaging content generation for their brands. Content is the best way to keep customers loyal, engaged, and spreading the word for your brand.

Thanks for participating @JackWagner54, @LouiseRobertson, @rpmkel @MovableContent, @justincina, @ellenoppenheim,‏ @seventalentv, @ansleyjo @socmedsoc, ‏@CandaceMarks, @tomgerace

Want to learn more on how to create a killer Facebook Timeline? Designated Editor will teach you how!

Link Love Boston: When you seek links, you’ll need quality content

Link Love Boston 2012 Zwickerhill Photography

Link Love Boston 2012 courtesy of David Zwickerhill Photography

A few talks into the Link Love Boston conference, someone tweeted: “Link Love? More like Content Love.”

Bottom line from Link Love: Invest in content; links are are not what they once were in the SEO realm. Social is where it’s at. And what makes something share-worthy?

Link Love Boston aligned a small galaxy of search marketing superstars, best of all in little ‘ol Boston. Normally, you’d have to trek to New York or San Francisco.

The best part of the day? A single track of presentations. No running across campuses or wondering which presenter will be asleep at the podium.

Highlights from Link Love Boston, featuring Rand Fishkin, Wil Reynolds, Tom Critchlow, and more show links require quality content + social media.

Link Building Reporting

View more presentations from Justin Briggs

In the SEO battle, CONTENT reigns as king

Storytelling, belief, trust is what makes us buy. Create content with those aspects!
You don’t have to limit your content to your work: find what your audience cares about and build community.
- Tell stories that mean something to your audience, i.e. create cool stuff and they will come.
The value of a link isn’t based on cost to acquire it.
- Content wins long-term. You pay upfront rather than paying each month: Google increasingly devaluing links.
- Content will continue to win sooner, as Google places greater emphasis. How soon until we’re all swimming in content?
Negative ROI to start, but content always wins over paid links, and it always wins earlier.
Rather than remove links, need to ensure you have lots of quality to balance out your profile.

Best practices with links

Quantity quotas diminish quality; this applies to links like everything else.
We always think in volume. But really, it doesn’t matter how much traffic you get if it converts terribly.
Marketing needs to be holistic and integrated, rather than myopic link-network. Google may catch up to you.
Cramming your title tag with keywords is bad practice.
If it looks spammy ultimately cuts down traffic.

Create a content team

20 people creating content, 5 people on outreach, 10 people doing design/development.
Create a new position: A chief content officer can turbocharge results. She will focus on strategy and make the inflection point happen.
Make the blogger into a permanent position: It is an important part of branding agenda.

Tactics for creating content-rich links

Help people get more traffic if they deserve it.
Find related articles, develop infographics. Reach out to original source & everyone who shared and interacted.
Rich links help to enhance search engine optimization.
SEO is half assignment-editing, half circulation.
SEOs look more like the leaders in digital publishing every day.
Treat the meta-description like it’s a sales copy: capitalize words, include phone numbers, etc.
For niche B2B: focus on building thought leadership and experts, PR outreach.
Don’t cram keywords into titles, make them read like headlines and make sense.

Links tools to consider using on a tight budget

Rankerizer, Keywordspy – allow you to export to excel and provide excellent analytics.
LinkDetective – find out how competitors rank.
LinkResearchTools – compares self to competitors, who’s building links faster.
Buzzstream – finds contacts for free.

Rethink the way you produce content for Pinterest

If planned correctly, Pinterest can drive over 100,000 visitors to your site.
What Pinterest wants: great ideas to guide through life, steps and guides.
Infographics don’t work as well on Pinterest.
- Instructographics for Pinterest must be at least 500 pixels wide and max 5,000 pixels long.
- Ideal graphic size for Pinterest 500 pixels wide by 2,500 long, want them to click through to your site.
Best time to “Pin It” – 5 AM & 5PM EST.
If you’re a business, pin IDEAS not products to Pinterest.
Create attractive images for Pinterest and post to your blog, pin the image to your page.
Make sure your text is small enough Pinterest visitors have to go to your site to really experience your pin.

These are simply a sampling of Link Love gems. Watch to know more? Check out the Link Love videos. And don’t miss Search Love San Francisco 2012.

Special thanks to @josephschaefer, @fairminder, @randfish, @BigGuyD, @timothyjjensen, @dohertyjf, @sarahbethgo, @shawnccpr, @sicodeandres, @bankonjustin, @seomoz, @foliovision, @JustinMattison, @colbyalmond, for their insights!

Facebook’s Timeline Lessons for Brands | OMMA Social