Welcome to Day 13 of 21 Days to a More Engaging Facebook Presence Series
(Click to watch in Full Screen HD)
The purpose of this series is to help you build deeper relationships with your customers so you can create content they love interacting with, and products they can not live without
In yesterday's video you reflected on why Facebook, and what strategic goals do you have for establishing your presence and developing your relationships.
We've also talked in other videos that the most powerful marketing doesn't come from the problem you solve, but rather communicate that you understand the problem your prospective customer is having.
Today, we're going to parle all of this into how you can create the perfect "landing tab" for first time visitors to your Facebook Page.
The standard advice when it comes to landing tabs on Facebook.
Create a page that offers "fan only" content.
Offer an incentive to "like" your page, and have two different pages, one for people who "like" and one for people who don't, and you'll convert a higher percentage of random visitors to "fans"
Now I'll be honest, my landing page at the time of this writing follows the standard advice...
But here's the problem...
Everybody's doing it!
When this method was first caught on, it worked.
But like anything, because it was working so well, other's caught on and started doing it too.
So what started off as an easy way to distinguish you from everybody else became standard practice.
And when something becomes standard practice, for the passive viewer, it's that much easier to ignored.
The other major problem with the "click like to access" method.
By the time you get the content, it's already too late.
You've liked the page, and they have access to publish to your News Feed. It's true that you could just "unlike" their page, but you'd be suprised how many people on Facebook have no idea how to unlike a page.
So they just ignore the page's updates until they go away.
But you're not here to be ignored.
You're here because you want to do something new.
You want to iterate, and stand out, and really engage your customer base.
So let's a look at a few designs that are doing a very good job at standing out, and look at what's making them work. Some of these are following the "standard practice" rule, and some are breaking the rules entirely.
But in every instance they are compelling enough to make you want to click that "like" button and hear more from the company.
First up, Here's the landing page from social media agency Room 214.
Front and center you get a call to action that talks about the story of how Room 214 came to be.
The animation is all hand drawn on a whiteboard and it's a very funny story. If you don't watch all the way through, and feel like you want to follow these two guys journey, you're not human.
Underneath there's a showcase of their most recent projects in case you wanted to see they were working on, and the caliber of their work is simply amazing. But the main point here is they've made a very compelling case for you to "like" their page without you having to invest anything. In a landscape that constantly demands you make the first move, not "gating" their content is very refreshing.
Next we have Daddy Design,
The first thing you notice on this page is it's eye catching orange color which is a stark contrast to the Facebook blue and white.
Because our eyes naturally go from left to right top to bottom, after we see the "like" button, The next place the eye is naturally drawn is to the "request a free quote" button on the top right, then as we scroll further down the page we get to see Daddy Design's portfolio, and the last 5 items we see are four calls to action to contact the agency and two ways to share the page, leading by example when it comes to showing they know how to design these forms.
My only real critique would be that I would also include a "like" button at the bottom of the page so you could caputure that last "like" but with well over 8,000 people on their page, they're not hurting for a bigger reach.
Both design firms are clear with their first impression that they are using their Facebook Page as a lead generation source.
Teesey Tees does use the gated approach
But they've done so through a clever design that blocks out the letters of the actual Fan message, and says "this page is ONLY visible to our Facebook Fans" giving you the feeling of being "left out" it also hints at, without rubbing it in there is a deal
And suprise! When you like the page they tell you how much they like you, and that just for being a Facebook Fan you get 15% off your order.
This isn't only compelling for anyone looking to make an order, it's also great to track the actual ROI of being on Facebook. With this very specific measure in place, they can evaluate ever aspect of their Facebook Sales funnel.
As a bonus, they also have a page for buying teeshirts, where a user can shop, leave comments on, and share items. The actual purchase takes place on their website, and the process for this type of tab is called initiated selling, which we'll talk about in another video.
Sony Ericsson's page also uses the "fan gate" method,
But, before you ever "like" their page, you can use their drop down to find the page that is the best fit for your country.
They then use their "Fan Gate" to say if you "like" their page, they'll tell you more about the phone. To the right people, who are looking to get out of their current phone, this could be very compelling. The phone itself looks pretty cool, and likely will convert viewers to likers.
The only thing I would do differently here is take the Room 214 approach and use a video in this spot. I'd give the video a call to action on the play button that says watch all the way through to learn how you can get a special "facebook fan only" discount. then direct them to one of the links on the left navigation that "gates" the discount.
Regardless, it's clear Sony Ericsson is using their page to keep fans updated on new product launches.
Your landing page is your first impression for new customers
Depending on how well you communicate your goals, can be your last impression.
It doesn't take much to stand out, but it does take a little extra consideration. If you want to see what other brands are doing... spend some time on facebook.com/pages and click around to see what else is out there.
Ask yourself what grabs your attention, and what about the design makes the page enticing.
Sometimes the best ideas come just from thinking like a customer.
And that's it, that's the end of Day 13 to 21 Days to a More Engaging Facebook Presence.
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