Michael Frenech, Cameron Partridge, Joel Price and Matt Gentile
How are successful brands like Century 21, Western Union, Roadtrip Nation and the San Diego Chargers building and sustaining their Facebook communities? This Social Media Marketing World panel touted engagement as a key to a great community.
Facebook Marketing Planning
One key to great content goes back to planning. Joel Price, manager of new media, San Diego Chargers, says they review the week’s Facebook performance each Monday and plan posts for the weekend (and the week ahead) each Friday. In addition to engagement, the team is looking to drive traffic to their online assets.
Century 21 does bi-weekly planning of content. Matt Gentile, global director, social media, says they follow the 80/20 rule, looking for 80% of content to be about engagement and 20% targeted to drive people back to century21.com. Because of the nature of their business, some content needs to have legal review, so planning ahead is key.
Cameron Partridge, senior social media strategist, Roadtrip Nation, works off a quarterly brief that rolls into a monthly content calendar. They also go by the 80/20 rule.
Western Union built their own master content calendar to fit their needs, says Michael Frenech, global social strategy. He says some content needs to be approved by the brand group and possibly legal counsel.
The three pillars for content in regards to Western Union’s audience:
1. Food
2. Family
3. Culture
Western Union piloted a Facebook page for their Filipino customers, Facebook.com/wupinoy. The audience for the page grew to 180,000 in 3 months with 230,000 people engaged. Their fans shared the content with their family and friends.
Roadtrip Nation’s three principles of content:
1. What value to the user?
2. Does it strike emotion from the user?
3. Does it ladder up to their brand?
The panelists were asked about learning from their past mistakes. Gentile had a situation when a California congressman said Century 21 was advertising on Rush Limbaugh’s show right after Limbaugh made disparaging comments about Sandra Fluke. Gentile responded before he confirmed the sponsorship. Century 21 was not a sponsor, so his takeaway is to have all the facts before you respond.
Partridge says they used to focus too much on the product and not the user. They now often let their super fans answer questions of other fans.
Frenech said Western Union took some flack for focusing too much on their Indian consumers. He learned they need to show all countries/areas the social love.
What makes your brand successful on Facebook? Can you share some of your best tactics?
Are you enjoying the live coverage of #SMMW15? There is more to come in the next few days from myself and TopRank’s @writerbrooke.
