Matrix Group International

Category: Content Marketing and Social Media

  • What’s the Difference Between Top News and Most Recent on Facebook? And Why Should Marketers Care?

    What’s the Difference Between Top News and Most Recent on Facebook? And Why Should Marketers Care?

    It’s been forever since Facebook changed it stream to be divided between Top New and Most Recent and many folks are still scratching their heads wondering what’s what. Here’s why you want your updates to be in your friends’ and followers’ Top News streams.

    According to Facebook, “Top News shows popular stories from your favorite friends and Pages, many of which have gained lots of attention since the last time you checked.” What this really means is that Top News shows the posts from the people and company page that you interact with the most. For example, I tend to “like” and comment on the updates from my friend Eileen, the photos from my brother Alex and articles from PBS. Since I interact with these Facebook account regularly, their posts are pretty much guaranteed to be in my Top News stream, which, by the way, is the default view.

    Top News also displays updates by relevance, based on an algorithm. If a post is getting a lot of comments, it will probably show up at the top of your stream, even if the original post is not the most recent in your stream.

    Most Recent “shows updates from as many as 250 friends and Facebook Pages.” This is a more traditional stream because it shows all posts, in chronological order, unless you’ve hidden posts from a specific person or company. If you haven’t checked out Most Recent recently, click on it now and you’ll see posts from a bunch of people and companies you thought weren’t posting. If you start interacting with some of these accounts more, you’ll start to see them in your Top News stream.

    What does this mean for marketers?

    It means that it’s absolutely not enough to have fans or followers. Your company’s Facebook page can have a million followers but unless they’re liking and commenting, your posts won’t show up in their Top News, which means they’re likely not getting much attention. On the flip side, once you get followers to interact with you more regularly, your posts will show up in Top News, which will further encourage them to like and comment.

    Remember, the key to Facebook success is to get your followers to interact with you regularly. I’ll blog in the future about ways to encourage interactions. And oh yeah, I’m doing a webinar next Wednesday, May 18, 11am Eastern on Social Media Marketing and Customer Engagement. Hope you can join me.

    BTW, you can edit your stream options by clicking on Edit Options at the bottom of your News streams.

    What do you think of Top News vs. Most Recent? Which stream do you prefer?

  • Facebook Admins Can Now Interact With Others on Facebook as THE Brand

    Facebook Admins Can Now Interact With Others on Facebook as THE Brand

    A few days ago, Facebook rolled out changes to the Facebook pages. Facebook pages are the equivalent of user profiles for companies and brands and they’re an increasingly important web presence for most organizations.

    One of the most important changes is the ability of Facebook admins to interact with fans and other pages as the company or brand. Here’s what this means:

    • Facebook admins can now be on Facebook as an individual OR the Facebook page or brand. If you’re admin on a Facebook page, go to your Facebook page and click on Account in the top right. The second option in the dropdown is Use Facebook as Page. If you click on this, you’ll get a list of all pages for which you’re an admin. Select one. You will now interact with others and pages on Facebook as THAT company.
    • You can “like” other Facebook pages as the company, not as yourself. Pages that your Facebook page “likes” will be displayed randomly (5 of them) in the left rail of your Facebook page, with the ability to View All.
    • You can comment on your own wall and other walls as the company, not as yourself. For example, Matrix Group can comment on a  client’s wall, even though it’s me, Joanna Pineda, who would be authoring the post.
    • You can view a newsfeed of updates from the pages that your company likes, not your friends. For example, Matrix Group has “liked” the Facebook pages of our clients. When I’m on Facebook as the Matrix Group page, when I press Home, my stream is from other company pages, not the friends and family of Joanna Pineda.
    • When I’m online as a page, Facebook recommends other pages for me to like as a company, based on the “likes” of the fans of my fan page. For example, Facebook tells me that 101 of Matrix Group Facebook fans like Starbucks and gives me the option to “like” Starbucks right from the Matrix Group fan page homepage.  Very slick.

    If there are multiple admins on  your Facebook page, be sure to train them on how to switch between their profile and your fan page. And establish guidelines for when to interact with other Facebook pages and fans as themselves or the company fan page. Remember that just because you as an individual love a band, author or political party, it does NOT mean that your company or brand should like these pages as well. I love these new changes and look forward to being Matrix Group on Facebook!

  • I Became a Mayor on Foursquare and all I Got Was a Lousy Crown

    I Became a Mayor on Foursquare and all I Got Was a Lousy Crown

    I did it! I finally became a Mayor on Foursquare! Foursquare is a location-based social network that lets users “check in” to a place they’re visiting, tell friends where they are, and track the history of where they’ve been and who they’ve been there with. Typically, users check in from restaurants, clubs, bars, museums and other places of entertainment.  But I’ve also seen people check in from their local grocery store, a hospital, a gas station.

    Foursquare crowns you Mayor of a location when you’ve checked in from that location more than anyone else. So I decided to make it a personal quest to become Mayor of Rustico, a restaurant in Alexandria that I enjoy and visit fairly regularly. So for the past couple of months, I scheduled all of my lunch meetings at Rustico, and even took my family there a couple of times. About ten days ago, I finally unseated the current Mayor to become Mayor. Woo hoo!

    But here’s the rub: aside from getting a congratulations message from Foursquare and a crown in my profile, being Mayor gave me nothing. I told my waitress when I became Mayor and she looked at me like I was nuts. Ditto the manager. Where other venues offer Mayors something special, I didn’t even get a thank you for promoting the resturant to my Foursquare and Twitter followers for the past few months.  Many establishments, especially restaurants now offer “specials” to Mayors and people who check in xx number of times; it’s a great way to encourage people to come, to foster loyalty and spread the word about your company. When a friend called to invite my family to dinner at Rustico, he asked if being Mayor made it easier to get a reservation and I just snorted. Ha! I wish! Not even a free soda!

    So I began to wonder if the folks at Rustico are even aware of Foursquare, Foursquare specials, and Mayors! I visited the Rustico website; no familiar links to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. I did manage to find Rustico on Twitter, but the page is not customized, there’s not even a description! Their Facebook page has 3 fans and no status updates. Okay, so it’s looking like Rustico hasn’t yet developed a solid social networking plan.

    I don’t believe every business should be on the Web and every social networking platform; it’s just not realistic, practical or even necessary. What I do believe, however, is that every business should have a listening strategy so that they can know if and when their business is being mentioned or discussed in a significant way on specific platforms. Does Rustico even know that hundreds of people are “checking in” to Rustico on Foursquare and Facebook places each week? Gosh, it takes just minutes to set up Google Alerts and Twitter searches.

    Imagine this: you set-up a Google alert so you’re notified when your business is mentioned on the Web. You notice lots of mentions on a specific social network. You check it out, learn more, maybe invest in ads or specials. Foursquare, for example, has a primer for businesses on how to use Foursquare to encourage more business.

    As for me, I recently lost the title of Mayor of Rustico but I’m not upset. I’m gunning for Mayor of another restaurant that I KNOW offers specials to its Mayors.

    How about you? Are you on Foursquare? Have you managed to become Mayor? Did you get anything special for it?

  • Turning Facebook Fans into Funds

    Turning Facebook Fans into Funds

    Last year, Matrix Group decided not to send out printed holiday cards.  Instead, we sent an e-card and donated the money we would have spent on printing and mailing and donated it to several local charities.  This year, we’re doing something similar, but with a social media twist.

    We’re taking the money we’re saving by not mailing printed cards to our entire list and once again donating it to charity. This year, however, we’re trying to increase the amount that we give away.  For every new Facebook fan who “likes” our fan page (the deadline is December 14), we’re adding $10 to the charity pot.

    Next, we’re asking our entire network of clients, partners, vendors and supporters to tell us how to give away the money.  I polled the staff and asked for recommendations for charities they thought were worthy of a gift.  We came up with the following organizations:

    In our Facebook page, we set up a Poll that allows fans to vote for their favorite charity from the list above. So far, we’ve gained over 100 new Facebook fans and nearly two hundred people have voted.

    I like this year’s holiday campaign because we’re able to increase the amount of our donation this year, we gain new fans, and we are able to showcase effective and well managed charities in the DC area. It’s also been fun to promote this holiday campaign to our house e-mail list, on our social media pages, and to our network of friends and supporters.

    Here’s how you can help:

    • “Like” our Facebook fan page at http://www.facebook.com/MatrixGroup
    • Vote in our poll
    • Spread the word about the campaign to your network of colleagues, friends and family

    We’ve got a goal of $5,000.  Help us support some terrific charities this holiday season!

    P.S. In case you’re wondering, we decided to still mail printed cards to our key client contacts because we were worried about some clients and partners not receiving the e-card because of a firewall or anti-spam software. In the end, we liked the idea of clients receiving something tangible from us and the ability to sign and personalize cards.  But instead of mailing nearly 1,000 cards, we’re mailing fewer than 200 cards.

  • How to Increase Likes and Interactions on Your Facebook Page

    How to Increase Likes and Interactions on Your Facebook Page

    Each week, as the main administrator for the Matrix Group Facebook fan page, I get a weekly report from Facebook that details the change in number of fans (people who have “liked” our page), as well as the number of views and interactions.

    Getting lots of fans and interactions is the holy grail of Facebook marketing. The more people “like” your page, “like” your posts, click through to your offers, comment and otherwise interact with your page, the more likely they are to become loyal fans and customers.

    So how do you increase likes and interactions on your Facebook page? Here are my top tips, based on the experiences of the Matrix Group marketing team.

    • Give your Facebook updates an authentic voice. What most people love about Facebook is the fact that they’re reading their friends’ thoughts and comments in near real-time.  And these comments are not written in corporate-speak; they read and sound the way people talk, like they’re having a conversation with you.  Your company’s Facebook posts should probably not be too casual, but they should sound less like a press release, and more like a comment from a friend or colleague.
    • Don’t just RSS your news items or blog posts. I’ve said this before but if all you’re doing is republishing headlines from your website or blog, you’re not giving people an incentive to follow you on on Facebook because the information is the same.
    • Don’t automatically post your Twitter updates to your Facebook page. Why?  Because you’re probably chattier on Twitter than you are on Facebook and chatty people and companies dominate Facebook streams, so fans are more likely to right-click and press Hide.  Besides, on Twitter, all you get is 140 characters; you get more words on Facebook, why not use them?
    • Make your posts stand out by adding photos and videos. You know the old saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”  It’s definitely true on Facebook and it’ s not surprising.  Most people scan their Facebook streams and a photo or video will catch people’s attention much more than a plain text status update.
    • Ask for feedback. I’m always amazed that the simple act of soliciting feedback often results in feedback.  Funny how that works.  Heck you don’t even need to ask for serious feedback.  Ask your fans what color to paint your office walls; or ask them to comment on your holiday menu.
    • Spark a debate. If you’re comfortable doing so, posting about topics that generate a little heat are great for interactions.  But always keep the language appropriate.
    • Use Facebook apps to add interactive features to your Facebook page. For example, you could create a custom tab, sponsor a contest, or host a game.
    • Offer exclusive benefits to your followers. Last holiday season, Snapfish offered a daily discount on its Facebook page that generated lots of interest, clicks and comments. I know because I could see the activity and I certainly checked the Snapfish Facebook page regularly for deals!
    • Test, test, test. My marketing team is always playing around on our Facebook page to see what time of day is best for posting, the types of messages that generate interactions and ultimately sales, and how to wordsmith updates to generate the highest number of interactions.

    Here are some good resources on Facebook marketing and interactions:

    • Zimply Zesty has 7 ways to increase interactions.
    • A study by Vitrue found that morning posts are more effective, users are more active at the top of the hour and weekdays are busiest.
    • Smart Passive Income has some great how-to videos on how to create and customize your Facebook page.

    How about you? What tactics have you used to increase interactions on your Facebook page?  Please share your stories!

  • Creating an Integrated, Layered User Experience Across Your Social Media Pages

    Creating an Integrated, Layered User Experience Across Your Social Media Pages

    I was researching an organization last week and visited their website, blog and social media pages. The website was nicely designed, easy to navigate, and had good information.  The blog was terrific and I quickly subscribed to the RSS feed.  When I got to the organization’s social media pages, I was sorely disappointed.  Their Twitter and Facebook pages had nothing but headlines from the blog. Clearly, all they did was take the blog RSS feed and use it to populate their social media pages.

    So did I decide to “follow” the organization on Twitter and “like” them on Facebook?  Absolutely not. Since I had already subscribed to the blog RSS feed, I didn’t feel compelled to follow them on Twitter and Facebook.  Why add clutter to my social media streams with information I can already get elsewhere?

    I know it’s tempting to set-up pages on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms and populate them with posts from your blog or press room.  We’re all busy and most communications and marketing departments are stretched thin.  But posting the same information across platforms isn’t doing your organization any good. Why?

    • By posting headlines that meet the least common denominator across platforms (probably Twitter, with its 140 character limit), you miss out on functionality offered by the other platforms.  For example, Facebook lets you post longer updates, upload photos and videos, include links, host discussions, etc.
    • You don’t give your target audiences a reason to follow or fan you across platforms.  Just imagine this.  If you post complementary but different content across platforms, your clients, prospects and supporters might just follow you on multiple platforms, giving your company an incredible voice with those individuals.
    • If you’re posting headlines from your news room, you’re not offering people the authentic, personal voice we’ve come to expect on the social media pages.

    Here’s what we do at Matrix Group:

    • Our website showcases our products, services, clients, portfolio, news and webinars.
    • This blog, which is authored by me, Joanna, the CEO, features my thoughts and commentary on social media, marketing, communications, strategy, customer service, trends and gadgets.  This blog DOES feature website launches at the bottom of each page.
    • Our Twitter page showcases our work and clients, but the majority of the tweets are about industry news, trends, how-to articles, and case studies.  Twitter will tell you who we are and what we’re reading.  We’re pretty chatty on Twitter; we post updates multiple times a day.
    • Our Facebook page also showcases our work and clients, but we also post photos and updates about happenings in the company, including trainings, parties, fun events, etc.  Facebook will tell you a lot about who we are as a company and our culture.  For example, our staff pumpkin carving contest was featured on our Facebook page.  We’re less chatty on Facebook, just updating a few times a week.
    • Our Flickr page is home to our photo library of company events, while our Facebook page has the “best of” photos.
    • Our YouTube channel is a work in progress and will soon feature short interviews with senior staff about their areas of expertise, including branding, the user experience, software development and security.

    As you can see, our various pages are all designed to showcase our expertise, clients and work but the user experience on each platform has been carefully crafted to take advantage of that platform’s capabilities.  And while the website is clearly a marketing channel for the company, we’re not very sales-y on our social media pages, focusing instead on posting useful and interesting links.

    How about you?  How are you creating an integrated use experience across your company’s social media pages?  What’s working for you?

  • What Happens When Your Facebook Page or Blog Gets More Traffic Than Your Web Site?

    What Happens When Your Facebook Page or Blog Gets More Traffic Than Your Web Site?

    Every week, I check out the usage reports for the Matrix Group Web site and blog. I also look closely at the analytics reports from Facebook for our Facebook fan page.  In the last year, traffic on this blog has overtaken the traffic on the public Web site.  And as we increase the number of fans on our Facebook page, our interactions have grown steadily as well.

    A recent article in Ad Age explores how some of the top consumer brands have Facebook pages with a fan base and interactions that far outstrip that of their official Web sites. Starbucks has 12.9M fans; Coke has nearly 11M fans; Oreo has 8.9M fans.  Of the companies in the article, only Starbucks has steadily increasing Web traffic.

    All of this got me thinking:  What happens when an organization’s blog, Facebook, Twitter or other social media page gets more traffic than the official Web site? Is this the ultimate goal for marketers?  Is traffic on a social media site worth as much as traffic on a company Web site?  Does this increased traffic ultimately lead to more customers and sales?

    I have clients who worry about redirecting traffic to social media pages, for fear of losing control over the conversations, not owning the Web property, or that the interactions are not quite official enough.  Others hold their social media stats in the highest regard.  Most of us  wonder what it really means when somebody chooses to “like” our fan pages.

    How to make sense of all this?  Here are some thoughts:

    • If your Facebook page is getting increased traffic and interactions, while traffic on your regular Web site is on the decline, ask yourself, “What is it about my Facebook page that’s working?  What’s making people “like” us, click through to articles and comment?  What are the lessons for content and opportunities for interaction on our official Web site?”
    • Your goal should be to have your Web site, Facebook page, Twitter page, blog, e-mail campaigns, microsites, etc., all be part of an integrated strategy where each Web property is complementing the others and encouraging cross traffic.
    • Ultimately, the goal should be conversions, whether that means more sales, more subscribers, more members or more donations.  Your goals should never be about traffic on specific platforms; that’s just a tactic.
    • You need a way to track the effectiveness of followers, likes, clicks and fans across the different platforms.  Use tracking codes, cookies and marketing codes to determine which platforms are really helping your business to thrive.

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  • Will Facebook Survive? And Does It Really Matter?

    Will Facebook Survive? And Does It Really Matter?

    Last week, I had the pleasure of being a speaker at the Benefits Communications Conference of the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Funds. During the closing session, one of the attendees asked me which social networks I thought were going to survive into the future. The dialogue went something like this:

    Me (Joanna): I can’t predict the future, but I think Facebook and YouTube will stick around for a while.  Not sure about the smaller networks, especially those without solid revenue models.
    Participant: But I’ve heard that the younger audiences are leaving Facebook now that their parents are signing up.
    Me: Yes, I’ve read that as well, but Facebook has really tipped in terms of popularity, all the research shows that the older audiences don’t leave a social network once their friends have joined and they’ve made a commitment to the site, and Facebook as a platform for all kinds of third-party applications is really compelling.

    But then I got to thinking.  Does it really matter if Facebook survives?  Does it really matter which of the social networks survives?

    If you’re hesitating about investing in a social media strategy because you’re wondering which of the platforms will survive, I think you’re worried about the wrong issue.  Here’s why:

    • Social media isn’t just a fad. Social networks have fundamentally changed how we communicate, connect and market.  Social networks have “tipped;” there is now a critical mass of people on social networks.  You can’t ignore the numbers.
    • In the end, it doesn’t matter which social network survives because there are now so many mainstream and niche social networks, it’s almost pointless to worry about which ones will make it.  Remember when we thought no other search engine could threaten Yahoo!’s primacy?
    • Your social media strategy probably needs to include having a presence on multiple networks, depending on where your target audiences are AND to ensure good coverage and reach for your marketing messages.

    Here’s what I think IS important:
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  • Blogging Best Practices – Part Two

    Blogging Best Practices – Part Two

    This week, I’m doing part two of a blog post I started last week on Blogging Best Practices. This post is inspired by a webinar that I conducted with my friend, blogger and activist Shaun Dakin, Director of Business Development at Infield Communications.  Here are additional take-aways from the webinar.

    • How Long Should Your Posts Be? We suggest that each post be no more than 4-6 paragraphs.  If your posts are too long, your followers may decide to read them at a later time and not come back.  But you want enough length to be able to cover a topic with enough substance.
    • Create Visual Interest. Although followers follow blogs for their content, we believe that your posts will have more impact if they have photos, videos, event basic html formatting.  If nothing else, use formatting to make your content skimmable.
    • Align Posts With Your Keyword/SEO Strategy. While I’m a firm believer that you can’t force keywords into headlines, do try to make your titles and opening paragraphs keyword rich.
    • Create Compelling Introductions. Think about it.  You make a decision about whether or not to open an e-mail or click on an article in your RSS reader based on the title and opening paragraph.  So make your blog post introductions compelling to encourage clicks.

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  • Blogging Best Practices – Part One

    Blogging Best Practices – Part One

    A couple of months ago, I had the pleasure of conducting a webinar on Blogging Best Practices with my friend, blogger and activist Shaun Dakin, Director of Business Development at Infield Communications.  Shaun and I are passionate bloggers and we each had a lot to say about what we think it takes to be a good blogger and have a successful and well-read blog!  Here are some of the take-aways from the webinar:

    • What Are Your Goals? The most important thing is to align your blog’s goals with your organization’s goals. Are you trying to engage your target audiences?  Influence?  Foster specific actions?  Your goals should be measurable so that, at the end of the day, you know if your blog is a success.
    • Who Should Blog? Shaun and I believe that anyone can blog, but for most organizations, you need people who have a 20,000 foot view of the industry or issues, enjoys writing (or is paired with someone who enjoys writing and is a good writer to boot), and is committed to pumping out content on a regular basis.
    • What Should You Blog About? This is the $64,000 question!  Ultimately, you need a mission statement for your blog that guides your content strategy.  We grouped blog posts into the categories.  In practice, most blogs employ a variety of blog post types to keep readers engaged.
      • Hot items/News – These posts tend to cover what’s new in the industry, breaking news, etc.
      • Strategy/Commentary – These posts try to provide a perspective on specific issues and usually aim to persuade readers to take a certain point of view.
      • Trends – These posts report on market trends, trending topics, research and statistics.
      • How-To Guides – These posts are often a combination of text and video and aim to provide users with a practical guide to doing something specific.

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