Us marketing professionals have known the importance of word of mouth and referral marketing for years. Sites such as TripAdvisor continue to thrive, and many of us are using social media monitoring to keep on top of what’s being said on social networks and forums. But, did you know that Facebook also offers this tool? Making the act of receiving recommendations a whole lot easier!
After proving to be a success across the pond, Facebook rolled out the ‘recommendations’ feature in the UK. The feature allows users to easily collect advice by posting an unambiguous status clearly labelled to show they’re asking for a recommendation. When their friends reply with suggestions, if the business has a Facebook page, they’ll be plotted on a map allowing the user to easily see which location is nearer and find out more about the business.
Facebook recommendations aren’t exactly revolutionary, but then again neither is word of mouth or referral marketing. With that being said, how many of you have actually optimised your Facebook page to support the recommendations feature? If the answer is “Well, me?” then you can stop reading this post, why not check out our ebook How to Get More Likes on Facebook instead. If you fall into the “I’ve not…yet” group, here are some words of wisdom to get you started!
Optimise to Capitalise
Add maps
Since one of the main aspects of Facebook recommendations is the fact that suggestions are then plotted on a map, we should ensure our Facebook page has the maps section up and running. This can be achieved by setting up a Bing business listing. Amanda Webb, the owner of Spiderworking.com, offers a useful step-by-step guide on how to do so in this post. Once set up, brand visibility and reach will increase dramatically.
Fill out all info on your Facebook page
Adding your website and company phone number is a given, but there are many other sections you can populate on your Facebook page that are just as valuable and sometimes overlooked, such as the ‘About us’ section.
As Kasia Perzyńska discusses in a previous Meltwater blog (Simple Tips to Optimise Your Facebook Business Page), your visitors want to know all the details about your business: where your office is located, what services you offer, what your working hours are and so on. Therefore, you need to provide them with complete information. The ‘About us’ section is a good place to emphasise the values and benefits of your products/services. You can use a social media monitoring tool to understand key industry trends/positive themes around your brand to ensure the content you write resonates.
Free tool: Likealyzer Analyse your Facebook page now!
Add a call to action button
Adding a call to action is best practice for any marketing campaign, and your Facebook page should be no different. Take a look at this post, Calls to Action: 50 That Sell and 10 That Repel, for inspiration for your CTA button text.
Encourage positive Facebook reviews
The truth is, customers are much more likely to air their negative experiences than positive ones, so it doesn’t hurt to ask customers to share positive reviews. Consider running a competition to encourage this.
Social media monitoring to find advocates
True brand advocates are an anomaly to the above as they ooze brand love without being prompted – but do you know who your brand advocates are? By using a social media monitoring tool such as Meltwater, you’ll be able to find the needle in the haystack and identify lovers of your brand. You can then reward their loyalty, in the hope that they will recommend you again in the future.
Using a social media monitoring tool to review recommendations and ROI
So, how can you tell if your Facebook page optimisation efforts have been worth the time you invested? Using a social media monitoring tool to benchmark metrics such as exposure and share of voice before and after optimisation took place is a great way to measure and understand ROI. You can also search conversations by a theme to identify what exactly it is that your audience likes about you, and then highlight this within the content on your Facebook business page.
If you’d like to learn more about optimising your Facebook strategy or social media monitoring, get in touch here!