Facebook Friday: OzSales

Good morning, Social Rabbit here with your guide to social media.

Facebook Friday is back!  Our first page under review is OzSale.  Ozsale is a members only online shopping club that holds sales for fashion brands.  It is free to join the club, and you are then notified of sales that come up.

What’s Happening on the Page now

• 347 people like the page
• The page has been going since October 2010

What’s working:

• When you go to the Ozsale Facebook page you land on a ‘sweepstakes tab’ where you have the chance to win a $1000 shopping spree. This entices the customer straight away as all they have to do is join the Ozsale website, which in turn is creating a bigger client database for them.
• They have listed their website details in the info box under the profile picture
• The profile picture stands out and is eye catching.  It explains what the business does.
• Ozsale has its unique URL www.facebook.com/ilovesales
• The info tab is filled with keywords and describes perfectly what the business does
• The admins are great responding to comments made by likers on the wall

Recommendations Going Forward

• When you click on the wall tab you can only see posts added by Ozsale and no-one else, even though there are a few posts from unhappy customers (which are hidden), you can actually see straight away that someone from Ozsale has responded which gives confidence to people who may want to purchase from them, it shows that they are listening to your customers and will work out any issues straight away.
• Instead of only posting the sales each day, perhaps ask questions about types of sales that are coming up, sales that people would like to see on your site, ask about fashion trends etc.  Try and make the page more interactive with the customer, this will engage more people to post on the page and suggest to friends.
• There doesn’t seem to be a posting strategy for the page, as some days there are 4 posts and others none, this may be turning people off.  Also the times of the posts are all work hours (9-5), it may be better to post in the early evening when people get home from work.  This needs to be experimented with to get the best results.  Posts could be scheduled to come out at certain times if software like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite is used.
• The info tab should contain the contact phone numbers and addresses of the office locations.
• The Twitter account address could also be added to the Facebook page so that people know that you can also follow them on Twitter.
• When posting images that match the sales for that day, make sure that they link straight back to the Ozsale website as opposed to the photos tab on Facebook. That way the customer can purchase straight away, or get the details and doesn’t have to go to another page, they are taken there directly.
• The discussion tab needs to be used or removed
• Ozsale need to make sure that they are checking every tab for comments from customers (including the photo and reviews tabs), on the ‘reviews’ tab a customer has asked a question about the New Zealand site as she has requested a refund quite a few times and is now going to the NZ Commerce Commission, yet no one has responded to her query.
• The photo’s tab could be used more effectively, but having albums for different items, eg handbags, shoes etc, or for different designers, to give people an idea of what is on sale.  Or it could be that once a week photo’s are taken at a sale and put up, then you could encourage shoppers to tag themselves in the photos.
• Use the events tab to create an event for each one of the sales that are advertised on the website.  Events can be shared with others, and are searchable across all of Facebook.
• There is a tab set up for a ‘sign up form ‘which is a great idea as this builds the client database, yet when you click on the tab, there is no information on a sign up form.  There is a promotion FBML which means the tab hasn’t been completed.  This needs to be updated or removed.
• Add a store application (eg Vendor) to the page, this uses PayPal for payment, and could result in extra sales, plus you could offer special deals for people who like your page through the store.
• Ozsale have a Twitter account that they are updating daily, they have 4186 followers – 100 times more than what they have on Facebook, so perhaps they should be sending out a tweet about their Facebook page, to their twitter fans.
• On the Ozsale website there is a page on memberships, perhaps setting up a tab on the Facebook page explaining the different types of memberships would be good, they can offer the customer a chance to sign up to the program then and there
• If you invite a friend to join Ozsale you get $10 off your next purchase. This should be promoted on the Facebook page.
• They could add a polls tab onto the page to get an idea of the types of sales their customers would like to see.
• There is no link back to the Facebook Page from the Ozsale website, this means they are missing out on a huge amount of people possibly joining their page!

Summary

The page has some great content and is obviously regularly maintained by it’s admins, however it is SHOUTING at visitors not engaging them with the posts.  They need to focus more on engaging and getting conversations going and building trust with visitors.