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> everything I read about maximising your web presence and impact told me that SMEs must integrate and embrace social media, especially Facebook This is where

> everything I read about maximising your web presence and impact told me that SMEs must integrate and embrace social media, especially Facebook This is where he went wrong; signing up to Facebook because a book said a business needs a Facebook page to be successful online is the wrong approach. If you can't explain why you're making a Facebook page it probably isn't going to work, even if you have no knowledge of Facebook as a platform you should still have knowledge of human behaviour. We're not a traditional business (we're an internet forum) and we have close to 100,000 likes at the moment, the value of having likes is seriously overstated, we get maybe ~300 click through's when we post an article and engagement is dropping more and more, in fact the same can be said of Twitter, we have ~6000 followers and get similar click through rates when we post something. They're not bad to have (Facebook page, Twitter account) but they aren't worth the time investment in most cases. It seems now that liking a page on Facebook or following a twitter account are hollow gestures that don't really carry any weight in the future.

jiggy2011 14y ago
Exactly, case in point: My local sandwich deli has now decided to go all "social media". They have a big sign on the counter saying "please like us on facebook" and when you buy a sandwich the staff ask you if you are on facebook. Something about the whole approach just feels wrong in a way I can't quite put my finger on. It just feels like them asking me to do what is basically a meaningless mechanical chore. I've been wracking my brains to think of how I would try and exploit social networking if I was running that business but so far I have come up empty.
- mratzloff 14y ago
  To start, exclusive coupons for their Facebook fans, posted every so often. Afterward, perhaps a create-a-andwich contest. The winner is voted on by the community and the sandwich is available for a limited time. Successful sandwiches are added to the permanent menu. Engagement for a sandwich place can be light. Just simple things that either directly benefit fans or don't require much from them.
- lifeisstillgood 14y ago
  Auto generate a coupon / QR code for everyone who likes you Then if any of their friends uses that coupon code (by flashing their iPhone at the till) then that original person gets ten points on their loyalty card I think frankly that a social graph is best employed using graphing friendly rewards - mostly that is the social dopamine thing in our brains, but affiliates also work In fact - is this being done?
  - sanxiyn 14y ago
    One of my friends is working on customer rewards program service startup utilizing social graph. (You may contact me if you are interested.)
  - hsshah 14y ago
    Indeed. Check out: http://www.urbanpiper.com/fe/business/ http://www.urbanpiper.com/fe/business/ Disclaimer: I am the cofounder of this company.
    - lifeisstillgood 14y ago
      Looks great - good luck
  - jdsemrau 14y ago
    We are currently in beta testing with Tenqyu
  - RussellZiskey 14y ago
    QR codes are a crock. This gimmick is already fading away as a momentary curiosity.
- gurkendoktor 14y ago
  I have seen a gas station with no less than 9 big flags in front of it, saying that you get $X off when you check in at Facebook. I guess it might work because you read the name of a friend in the same sentence as the business. It might work even better with sandwiches, because that's something you can actually recommend. (Gas is all the same.) Source: Taiwan
- Splines 14y ago
  > They have a big sign on the counter saying "please like us on facebook" and when you buy a sandwich the staff ask you if you are on facebook. Personally, I dislike this sort of approach. If I need to like something to get something in return (sometimes a coupon or a download), I usually un-like the thing immediately thereafter and try to scrub all traces of it from my wall. Yes, this is going against the spirit of the exchange, but it's my FB account (in as much as I can say it is), not yours.
  - RussellZiskey 14y ago
    Not to mention the pathetic lack of self respect. Begging people to "like" you? Sad.
    - epo 14y ago
      It's just a codeword, as you are well aware. "Please add yourself to our unsolicited mailing list", would at least be honest.
- jlarocco 14y ago
  Admittedly, I'm not a huge Facebook user, so maybe this is ignorance on my part, but... If you're already in the store buying a sandwich, why are they even promoting the Facebook account? When I buy a car, the salesman doesn't ask me to go watch their commercial on TV afterwards. Does the number of "likes" factor into how often their ads get served?
  - frio 14y ago
    By liking them, you're advertising them. Your "like" factors into your friends getting an update saying "jlarocco likes the Super Sandwich Stall", and thinking "huh, I should go and try that place". It's somewhat meaningless now, admittedly: I might not speak for everyone, but I've basically tuned out anyone "liking" anything on Facebook as white noise.
- Silhouette 14y ago
  I've been wracking my brains to think of how I would try and exploit social networking if I was running that business but so far I have come up empty. IME, social networks are awesome for raising publicity if you can get your real fans to tell their friends about you, if whatever you do is something that will be genuinely interesting to those with common interests (which of course friends tend to have). It's a networking effect, a real-time version of good old word-of-mouth advertising, which has always been by far the best kind to have. Weaker personal actions such as likes, follows, mailing list subscriptions and all that jazz might have some benefit, but I don't believe it's anything like as much. I'm thinking this is because these are personal expressions of interest, but in reality they probably have little if any networking power. I lack faith that any sort of paid Facebook advertising will even have a positive RoI, based on a few small-scale experiments that I personally know about and on media reporting of larger organisations not doing any better. I suspect a lot of people treat these ads much as they would treat junk mail: just another form of spam to be auto-ignored, and probably subject to banner blindness by now.
mattmanser 14y ago
Saying it's where he 'went wrong' is a bit unfair. He tried to research the market by the sound of it: everything I read about maximising your web presence and impact told me that SMEs must integrate and embrace social media He did his research. He's reporting back it doesn't work. It seems to me that the entire point of him writing this article was to warn other SMEs to not take that advice at face value.
conradfr 14y ago
"Likes" are almost as meaningless as karma is on reddit. Especially as there is no dislikes. What do 30, 1000 or 10000 likes tell about your company ? At what point do they measure success ?
- dasil003 14y ago
  Well, in the case of one partner of my startup, it tells you that the KPI for a given marketing campaign is number of likes added, and some companies are willing to pay out the nose to get them.
- rehack 14y ago
  I think, if as a business you have not bought your likes, then they do imply something. For example, some of our competitors have around 10 times to 50 times the likes as us. But the difference in reactions to a post we might make is no where as much - they could be just 1.5 times to 2 times or even less. Also, businesses indulging in purchasing likes, to showcase their fan base(really?) has perhaps contributed a lot to FB Ad purchase so far. So the past year or so, can be called the 'like' wave of FB/Social. The future is interesting!
- notatoad 14y ago
  i don't use facebook so correct me if i'm wrong, but doesn't liking a page have a similar effect to following on twitter, in that people who have liked your page will see your updates in their feed? the number of people who like you is irrelevant maybe, but if they're all subscribed to your marketing updates that's not nothing.
  - citricsquid 14y ago
    theoretically yes, but in reality it isn't that simple. Through Facebook insights I can see that for a post we made last week (to the page with 100k likes that I mentioned above) was shown in the timelines of 20,000 people and was "engaged" by just under 400 (this means they either "liked", clicked the link or shared or commented on it). So while it isn't "nothing" it's substantially less than you would expected.

jiggy2011 14y ago

Exactly, case in point: My local sandwich deli has now decided to go all "social media". They have a big sign on the counter saying "please like us on facebook" and when you buy a sandwich the staff ask you if you are on facebook. Something about the whole approach just feels wrong in a way I can't quite put my finger on. It just feels like them asking me to do what is basically a meaningless mechanical chore. I've been wracking my brains to think of how I would try and exploit social networking if I was running that business but so far I have come up empty.

mratzloff 14y ago
To start, exclusive coupons for their Facebook fans, posted every so often. Afterward, perhaps a create-a-andwich contest. The winner is voted on by the community and the sandwich is available for a limited time. Successful sandwiches are added to the permanent menu. Engagement for a sandwich place can be light. Just simple things that either directly benefit fans or don't require much from them.
lifeisstillgood 14y ago
Auto generate a coupon / QR code for everyone who likes you Then if any of their friends uses that coupon code (by flashing their iPhone at the till) then that original person gets ten points on their loyalty card I think frankly that a social graph is best employed using graphing friendly rewards - mostly that is the social dopamine thing in our brains, but affiliates also work In fact - is this being done?
- sanxiyn 14y ago
  One of my friends is working on customer rewards program service startup utilizing social graph. (You may contact me if you are interested.)
- hsshah 14y ago
  Indeed. Check out: http://www.urbanpiper.com/fe/business/ http://www.urbanpiper.com/fe/business/ Disclaimer: I am the cofounder of this company.
  - lifeisstillgood 14y ago
    Looks great - good luck
- jdsemrau 14y ago
  We are currently in beta testing with Tenqyu
- RussellZiskey 14y ago
  QR codes are a crock. This gimmick is already fading away as a momentary curiosity.
gurkendoktor 14y ago
I have seen a gas station with no less than 9 big flags in front of it, saying that you get $X off when you check in at Facebook. I guess it might work because you read the name of a friend in the same sentence as the business. It might work even better with sandwiches, because that's something you can actually recommend. (Gas is all the same.) Source: Taiwan
Splines 14y ago
> They have a big sign on the counter saying "please like us on facebook" and when you buy a sandwich the staff ask you if you are on facebook. Personally, I dislike this sort of approach. If I need to like something to get something in return (sometimes a coupon or a download), I usually un-like the thing immediately thereafter and try to scrub all traces of it from my wall. Yes, this is going against the spirit of the exchange, but it's my FB account (in as much as I can say it is), not yours.
- RussellZiskey 14y ago
  Not to mention the pathetic lack of self respect. Begging people to "like" you? Sad.
  - epo 14y ago
    It's just a codeword, as you are well aware. "Please add yourself to our unsolicited mailing list", would at least be honest.
jlarocco 14y ago
Admittedly, I'm not a huge Facebook user, so maybe this is ignorance on my part, but... If you're already in the store buying a sandwich, why are they even promoting the Facebook account? When I buy a car, the salesman doesn't ask me to go watch their commercial on TV afterwards. Does the number of "likes" factor into how often their ads get served?
- frio 14y ago
  By liking them, you're advertising them. Your "like" factors into your friends getting an update saying "jlarocco likes the Super Sandwich Stall", and thinking "huh, I should go and try that place". It's somewhat meaningless now, admittedly: I might not speak for everyone, but I've basically tuned out anyone "liking" anything on Facebook as white noise.
Silhouette 14y ago
I've been wracking my brains to think of how I would try and exploit social networking if I was running that business but so far I have come up empty. IME, social networks are awesome for raising publicity if you can get your real fans to tell their friends about you, if whatever you do is something that will be genuinely interesting to those with common interests (which of course friends tend to have). It's a networking effect, a real-time version of good old word-of-mouth advertising, which has always been by far the best kind to have. Weaker personal actions such as likes, follows, mailing list subscriptions and all that jazz might have some benefit, but I don't believe it's anything like as much. I'm thinking this is because these are personal expressions of interest, but in reality they probably have little if any networking power. I lack faith that any sort of paid Facebook advertising will even have a positive RoI, based on a few small-scale experiments that I personally know about and on media reporting of larger organisations not doing any better. I suspect a lot of people treat these ads much as they would treat junk mail: just another form of spam to be auto-ignored, and probably subject to banner blindness by now.

mattmanser 14y ago

Saying it's where he 'went wrong' is a bit unfair. He tried to research the market by the sound of it: everything I read about maximising your web presence and impact told me that SMEs must integrate and embrace social media He did his research. He's reporting back it doesn't work. It seems to me that the entire point of him writing this article was to warn other SMEs to not take that advice at face value.

conradfr 14y ago

"Likes" are almost as meaningless as karma is on reddit. Especially as there is no dislikes. What do 30, 1000 or 10000 likes tell about your company ? At what point do they measure success ?

dasil003 14y ago
Well, in the case of one partner of my startup, it tells you that the KPI for a given marketing campaign is number of likes added, and some companies are willing to pay out the nose to get them.
rehack 14y ago
I think, if as a business you have not bought your likes, then they do imply something. For example, some of our competitors have around 10 times to 50 times the likes as us. But the difference in reactions to a post we might make is no where as much - they could be just 1.5 times to 2 times or even less. Also, businesses indulging in purchasing likes, to showcase their fan base(really?) has perhaps contributed a lot to FB Ad purchase so far. So the past year or so, can be called the 'like' wave of FB/Social. The future is interesting!
notatoad 14y ago
i don't use facebook so correct me if i'm wrong, but doesn't liking a page have a similar effect to following on twitter, in that people who have liked your page will see your updates in their feed? the number of people who like you is irrelevant maybe, but if they're all subscribed to your marketing updates that's not nothing.
- citricsquid 14y ago
  theoretically yes, but in reality it isn't that simple. Through Facebook insights I can see that for a post we made last week (to the page with 100k likes that I mentioned above) was shown in the timelines of 20,000 people and was "engaged" by just under 400 (this means they either "liked", clicked the link or shared or commented on it). So while it isn't "nothing" it's substantially less than you would expected.