Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Brad Kleinman from OMI shares Facebook Marketing tips with NIU Students


Brad Kleinman Director of Education from OMI (Online Marketing Institute/Online Marketing Connect) spoke to an overflowing room of over seventy students last night on the nuts and bolts Facebook marketing.

One of the things that I think is relevant to our class project in driving traffic to the Restaurant.com site is the concept that you can't 'set it and forget it' in Facebook (or any online marketing). In a three week project like this one, we need to check the progress of our campaigns every day. In terms of Facebook marketing, post and update frequently.

I also thought that Brad did a good job of articulating the benefits of a fan page versus a group in Facebook. In talking about the advantages of ability to customize, add in applications, have a vanity URL(if you have over 25 fans) and access Facebook Insights capability which will tell you page metrics, Brad really made the case for using the fan page.

Brad also talked about measuring both fan size and interactions and quality and quantity of posts to develop an intelligent understanding of how the fan page is benefiting your organization. Brad also suggested a variety of ways to keep your page fresh and update frequently. These suggestions included:

Publish informative pieces of content such as interesting articles and videos
Post and tag photos of customers, business associates, co-workers, and customers
Upload and tag video clips of your organization in action or a program in session
List an event for an open house or a social event for your prospects
Write a note about upcoming programs or success of a recent event
Ask a question through a poll or survey about how you can help
Reward your fans with giveaways, sweepstakes, or coupons
Keep your Facebook page up to date with RSS

There was a lot more in the talk so if you attended the event, check out the slides I just sent.

If you are just interested in learning more from Brad, contact him at: Brad@OnlineMarketingConnect.com







to posts from fans



5 comments:

Julie and the Interactive Marketers said...

Our entire group attended this event and we thought it was an interesting presentation. Although we are not using Facebook for our Restaurant.com project, it was still insightful to hear about the different tools Facebook has to offer to business'.

We thought that the suggestions for the different types of posts were good and useful. By posting a variety of different content, we think a company will be able to attract all different types of fans to its page.

One thing that Brad said that stood out to me, is that one could get a certification on Google Analytics from Google. It cool to see how important data is.

Overall, we thought this was a good presentation and insightful.

MealDeal said...

Brad Kleinman's presentation on how to utilize Facebook for your business was very insightful. Our group is not utilizing Facebook for our Restaurant.com project, but the topic is still extremely relevant to us, as we may be using this social networking tool in our careers.

Especially useful was the explanation of how a Facebook Fan Page is more beneficial to your customers than a Group Page. You can be more interactive with your customers in a Fan Page and can measure your success with a Fan Page. And as Brad noted in his presenation, "if you aren't measuring, you aren't marketing."

Also noteworthy was the survey of Facebook Business Tools. Brad explained some tools on Facebook that I was either unaware of, or did not know how to use. One of the tools I was unaware of was Insights, which is a measurement tool. Knowing of this tool will be very beneficial if/when we are responsbible for a Facebook Fan Page in our careers.

The Entrees said...

Although the entrees are not using Facebook for the Restaurant.com campaign, we did find Brad's tips useful for our Blog. We have used some of his techniques in order to help make our blog out.

To help retain readers we have been blogging frequently in order to keep our information fresh. Another tip that Brad mentions is to incorporated videos, articles or other multimedia. Within our blog we have been posting pictures of each establishment and of our meals. The pictures have helped to make our post visually appealing for our readers.

We found it very useful that we were able to tweet his suggestions to help build a strong blog following.

DineNDash said...

Although we are not using Facebook for our Restaurant.com project we felt the points stressing customer interaction were most important.

Asking questions through a poll or survey will really help drive customer interaction with a brand and perhaps give you a better idea of what the customer thinks about the brand.

Also,we feel rewarding your fans and customers is important because that will show them their responses are important to us and we appreciate their responses.

The presentation really showed us that Facebook is a viable tool for interactive marketing.

ketz said...

To help maintain visitors we have been writing a weblog regularly to be able to keep our information clean. Another tip that Kaira refers to is to integrated video clips, content or other multi-media. Within our weblog we have been publishing images of each organization and of our foods.

AllenCarlos