Social Media and Marketing

IN-DEPTH: Do’s and don’ts when it comes to working on a Facebook App

Published: 12 May 2011

IN-DEPTH: Do’s and don’ts when it comes to working on a Facebook App

By Ritesh Gupta

Facebook poses a new creative challenge and opportunity for marketers.

The clear benefits of Facebook and other social networking sites over conventional channels is that, through these sites, travel companies can make experience more interactive and reach an extended network of friends.

The challenge that Facebook poses for marketers focuses on how to deliver value in the long term: for social media strategies to have longevity, they need to engage the users with stimulating, relevant content, and/or provide them with the tools necessary to meet their needs over time, according to Gurmej Bahia, director of Customer Marketing at Expedia.

There also needs to be a seamless flow between channels and a cohesive user experience that adds value, not just a duplication of information in each channel.

“For travel agencies where customers are traditionally only engaged in their business for brief periods during the year, Facebook requires a shift in approach: rather than the traditional focus on targeting during key travel periods, with Facebook we need to develop an ongoing relationship,” Bahia told EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta in an interview.

Audience

Sixty percent of Americans visit Google in a given week, compared with 43 percent who say they have a Facebook page. Both sites attract young, affluent, and educated Americans in large numbers, each counting more than half of those under 50, those with college degrees, and those making more than $90,000 a year among their users. These findings were from a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Jan. 28-30, 2011, with 1,487 U.S. adults. Men are about as likely as women to have a Facebook page, while men are more likely than women to say they visit Google in a given week.

Traffic to Facebook pages is different than Likes, highlighted Compete in its recent analysis.

Likes are cumulative, and someone can like a brand then not visit the brand’s page for months.

Traffic is actual visitation to a Facebook page as measured by unique visitors, so potentially more representative of current interest. “Unique” means that someone visiting a given page more than once in the month is counted only once.

According to Compete, Facebook will likely become more important, and results suggest greater leveraging of Facebook is possible.Companies will have to address:

• Are FB page visitors and brand domain site visitors the same people?
If they are the same, can one be used to drive traffic to the other?
If not, why are they different and how can they be cross-pollinated?
• To what extent are results seasonal?
Does Facebook visitation actually drive business?
For example, are consumers that visit FB site and the brand more likely to buy/convert/book than those that don’t?
Do visitors to one brand’s Facebook page purchase from rivals?
• To what extent are multiple Facebook pages from the same brand contributing to overall interest?