Good morning, Social Rabbit here with your guide to the world of social media.
If you spend lots of time on Facebook you may have noticed a few questions popping up in your personal newsfeed, rather like this one:
Do You have a Question?
April 2, 2011 By 2 Comments
How can I use Polls on my Facebook Page?
January 8, 2011 By 1 Comment
Good morning, Social Rabbit here with your guide to social media.
For anyone who is not sure what a poll on Facebook is, below is an example, basically it is a survey question where you give people a choice of answers. When they click on the answer they are then taken to the results and they can see what others thought.
My favourite Poll application is called Poll, it is free (although there is also a paid version with no ads and a photo option) to add it to your Facebook Page as a tab and also publish it on your wall – which means that people are more likely to click on it. There is however lots of different poll applications, so if you don’t like this one you can do a search on Facebook to find others.
How you could use a poll on your page,
- To ask questions about your product/service to improve it (as Poll have done in the example above)
- To ask people what their greatest concerns are on a topic, the answers could be used for a blog post or to improve your product range
- To get feedback on when people shop for your product/service, what prompts them to buy etc.
- To ask what they think good customer service is, or another topic that will help you in your business
- Ask people to vote on which product you should put on special
- Ask people to vote as to what they would like to see on your page
- To vote on the location of your next store
- To vote on their favourite product/design in your range
- To vote on topical topics, like who should win The Ashes!
- To make people laugh, by making it silly (if it fits with your brand to do that)
A poll application can add a bit more variety to your page, by giving people a really easy way to engage with you – by just clicking instead of having to type an answer. Plus people can share the poll (if they think it’s funny/interesting/useful) with friends and therefore promote your page and business further.
Here are some polls that look good:
A word of warning to all the pollsters out there, don’t put up a new poll each day you will drive your page visitors insane! Mix in the use of polls with your other posts so that it keeps your content fresh and engaging.
Examples of good Facebook Fitness Pages
June 20, 2010 By 1 Comment
Good Morning, Social Rabbit here with your guide to the world of social media.
Today as part of the series of finding good Facebook Page examples from different industries I am using the fitness industry – this is much much easy to find good examples for (vs. last week’s accountants), because there are lots more to choose from and lots of great ideas that you could use on your page – don’t think you have to stick to what everyone else in your industry is doing – if you see a good idea steal it.
First up is 24hr Fitness in the USA. These guys have got so interactive with their page I love it, I could have just used this whole page for the article, I really recommend checking it out (click on the images to go there). First up is the careers tab they have, a great way to recruit people, it’s a) in the right environment (people on the page are interested in the gym) and b) it is non threatening for people who aren’t necessarily qualified but want to find out about it. I also love that you can share the roles with a friend, so if you know your friend is looking – hey preso hit share!
The second example from them is an app that you can download and put on your profile, so for all those people who like to tell everyone else (who are usually sitting at a desk/on the sofa) that they have just run 10,000 miles you will love this. For 24hr fitness they have tapped into what their customer like, what they want to share, and have turned it into an app that spreads the brand name about – clever eh?
The third example is from Planet Fitness in the USA, first up rather than their welcome tab being called ‘welcome’ they have called it ‘judgement free’ again tapping into the minds of their audience. Then they have put a box on this tab so that you can type in your postcode and find your nearest centre – making it easy for the customer, which I am a HUGE fan of.
For the Fourth and Fifth examples they are both from Bally Total Fitness in the USA. The first thing I love is this tab below which is all about motivation and success – tapping into the customers mind! On this tab you can upload before and after pictures and write a bit of blurb and share it with everyone. For people who are overweight losing it is a big deal so this gives them somewhere to SHOUT about it.
The next example is taken from the wall of the Bally Total Fitness page, they have 3 app’s one after the other, engaging you on different levels, one to find out what your gym personality is, the next on boosting your workout and finally one to inspire. I decided to do the gym personality one, and loved it, the way it spoke to me said we understand our customers, it was fun to do and the result – see below I am apparently a wait lifter (love the way they use gym terms). Obviously this is just fun, but it’s those fun things that stick in people’s minds and therefore helps your brand to stick. Plus remember they are hoping you share this with friends (I was tempted) so that their brand awareness increases.
Final example of the post is a very simple one, but it caught my attention.
This is from Fitness 24 in Australia. They only have 740 likers on the page, so don’t have anything flash going on, but what I liked was the profile picture because a) it grabbed my attention, b) the people look like they are having fun (and don’t we want to have fun when we workout?) and c) it gave the page a friendly feel to it.
There are lots and lots of examples that you can integrate onto your page, whether you have lots of cash or not much, there are lots of free app’s on Facebook that you can use to create quizes, run polls, etc. So don’t sit there and say “But” go do something about it.
If you have an industry you’d like me to explore next week please tell me in the comments below, or if you think this blog series is a waste of screen tell me that too….
Facebook Friday: The Atrium Cafe
April 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Good Morning, Social Rabbit here with your guide to the world of social media.
It’s Facebook Friday again… today I look at The Atrium Cafe’s Page, see below. This is a local business in Launceston, Australia which doesn’t have a website, this is it, so it needs to work hard for the cafe.
What’s working:
- Great regular posting
- It is a local Tasmanian business and the posts are aimed at the locals, which is great, they know who their audience are
- Fantastic engagement with their customers, eg the post on Megan’s birthday saying they have a surprize for her. It makes their customers feel special I’m sure
- Lots of comments on what they are doing with other local businesses, eg Rotary, which a) gives them an endorsement and b) promotes Launceston
- Enticing pictures of food that make you want to go & order it
- Every comment is responded to
- The reviews tab is very very positive with each person rather than just overall raving they are picking out the details that made it special for them
What could be improved:
- There is no landing/welcome tab, so new visitors land straight on the wall, this should be added as it could be used to showcase the cafe and the food
- There is no phone number for the Cafe, or any way to contact them other than visiting, big mistake… you need to make it as easy for people to contact you as you can. otherwise they won’t bother
- The page has not got its username yet, this would help with SEO and make it easier to direct people to the page, so go to www.facebook.com/username to get it ASAP
- The info box under the profile picture again is very empty, I get the impression that they are going for a simple look, but with no keywords in here they are missing out on SEO opportunities, especially as this is their web presence
- In the info tab there are hardly any relevant keywords, these should be included for example: A friendly welcoming environment with delicious freshly made food… etc
- Photo’s tab, I would add in albums, currently it is very boring, give people a reason to click on albums and sell the products through the images, eg The Cafe, I’d want to see what it looked like inside & out, lunch menu – take a picture and have it in the album with photos of the food also in the album, they could so the same for breakfast etc.
- Take off the discussions tab they are not using it, and don’t really need to
- Go with the notes tab for notes, instead of the notes box on the Boxes tab and the Notes tab. It just cleans it up and makes it easy for people to find
- The profile picture can be A LOT bigger there is 200 by 600 pixels to play with, so could have a montage of food shots. The food shots are all great, but give people as idea of the range, also remember you can change this as often as you like
- How about having a people who like only tab where they can print off coupons to bring in and use, it will encourage customers to visit and like the page and also encourage people to keep coming back
- They need to make sure that they are promoting that they have a Facebook Page in the cafe so that people know to go and like the page
- Use the poll app to engage customers further and get them involved in the food decisions, prehaps consider having a dish of the month/week that was voted on by the Page visitors, you could get them to offer suggestions and then put those suggestions in a poll
- There is also nothing on the page about corporate catering, obviously this is something they offer, this could be an image on a FBML tab called catering
Overall a great page with lots of interaction, but it could be working harder for the business, a phone number on there would be the best thing if only 1 of these were implemented.
Until next time readers, remember if you have a page you want ideas for, ways to improve it and telling what is going wrong, click here to purchase!
Pimp up Your Facebook Page
March 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Good afternoon, Social Rabbit here with your guide to the world of social media.
Adding app’s to your page has never been easier, below I list some you might want to try, they are all free and can definitely add value to your fan’s experience:
- Involver App’s They have 9 free app’s you can really easily add to your page: RSS feed, a photo gallery, YouTube channel, Flickr, Twitter, PDFs, Slides, Page promotion and file sharing. I particularly love the YouTube tab and the photo gallery, as the photo gallery rotates your pics and is far sleeker than the FB standard one. With the free version you can only download 2 app’s per Facebook Page, and some of the app’s are limited, eg the photo gallery you can only upload 10 pictures.
- Store tab, I love this Payvment E-commerce Storefront. You can quickly and easily add products that you can sell on your Facebook page and link it to paypal for easy payment. Plus people can search within it for items.
- Polls, my favorite is this one, because it shows up on the wall of your page, rather than in a box on the side, which means it also shows up in the newsfeed of your fans
- FBML, basically allows you to add images to your page, although you can also use it to add enewsletter sign up forms like we have done here on the Mocks page, we have added it as a box on the boxes page. You can also create a welcome page using FBML, either do it yourself or there are lots of companies on Facebook who will do it for you for about $25 – a bargain!
- Twitter updated with your Facebook updates, using this app.
- Networked Blogs – a great app to add your blog to your page, and really easy to implement.
At the moment these are my favourites for pages, but before you start adding app’s like crazy you need to think what you want your audience to do when they reach your page… how do you want them to interact?
I’d love to hear about your favourite app’s as there are thousands out there… Let me know in the comments.
