The Marketer’s Playground
While most companies perceive the Timeline as an opportunity to better showcase their brand and engage with consumers, there are a few others who had little choice than to simply migrate. For brands that aren’t taking full advantage of the Timeline, research by Thismoment highlights some reasons why they should:
- Facebook ad revenues are expected to hit $7 billion in 2013 (eMarketer). This, along with Facebook’s creative new layout, means that consumers are going to be even more engaged and spending more time on the site.
- The evolution of Facebook from the ‘Wall’ to the Timeline makes it a marketer’s playground. Brands can now tell their stories more visually and chronologically.
- Facebook’s advertising changes include the introduction of the Reach Generator. Using this, advertisers can reach 50% of their fans each week and 75% each month (typically brand posts reach only 16% of fans).
- For brands that have fully embraced the Timeline, the returns include increased conversions, improved lead generation, better sales and higher engagement.
Does the Timeline Impact Engagement?
With the introduction of the Timeline, brands will now focus more on engagement and less on amassing ‘likes’. The Timeline, which is more “social”, provides businesses with additional tools for engagement. Let us examine how:
- Cover Image: A visually rich canvas that attracts new users and engages existing fans with the primary brand message. For brands, the cover image handles the first step of engagement i.e. drawing attention to their business.
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Custom Tab Apps: Of the 12 applications that can be showcased, four (the photos app is default) are visible the moment users log onto a brand’s Timeline. To improve engagement, it’s crucial for brands to decide what apps they want to feature in the first row. The Oral-B Timeline, for instance, features the “Product Reviews” tab (among other interactive tabs), where users are encouraged to upload videos narrating their experiences while using Oral-B products.
- Pinning and Starred Posts: Pinned and starred posts encourage more ‘likes’, views, and highlight content that is worth being shared. By ‘pinning’ important posts, brands can keep it on top of their Timeline for 7 days.
- Private Messaging: A highly valuable tool for engagement, this feature allows users to contact brands directly, without publicly displaying the messages. This also enables brands to personally interact with customers.
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Premium: Using this feature, brands can place sponsored story ads in impactful places. Facebook’s studies show that Premium ads and stories on the right-hand side are over 40% more engaging and 80% percent more likely to be remembered than all previous offerings.
- Insights: The new insights feature allows brands to know how many people are liking, commenting, and sharing the brand’s content on Facebook; all this within 5-10 minutes from the time it’s published.
Facebook Offers
For brands looking to drive people to their business and engage with existing customers, the ‘new’ Facebook has some good news. Currently limited to a small number of local business pages, ‘Facebook Offers‘ will be broadly rolled-out soon. How can brands benefit from this?
- Facebook Offers is a far superior version of Facebook Deals.
- Using offers on Facebook is free and the returns are lucrative.
- Facebook Offers improves conversions. Fans who have ‘liked’ a page will start to see the offer on their newsfeed. After selecting the ‘Get Offer’ option, they can redeem their discount at the brand’s nearest outlet.
- Brands can ‘pin’ the offer to the top of their Timeline, ensuring greater visibility and better returns.
Facebook Timeline: The Future of Sharing?
The Timeline is not only a great design improvement from the old Facebook, but also opens up huge marketing opportunities for brands. The chronologically organized layout, the slotting of content into specific Milestones etc. makes it simpler for brands to upload and share their content with consumers. From ‘pinning’ and ‘starring’ content that’s worth sharing, to sharing offers posted on their Timelines, Facebook’s new layout has given brands the perfect platform to share their stories/content with consumers.
- Shama Ahmed
Thismoment
