The Power of Millions Harnessing Social Media

The Vatican City – the smallest independent state in the world – has its own Facebook page. When the ‘VatiLeaks’ scandal ripped through the media a little while ago, the number of Facebook users within the Vatican City plummeted by 80 per cent – perhaps to prevent even more confidential information from being rapidly released on the world.

The negative powers of Facebook are often discussed in the media – for many teenagers who apply for jobs their Facebook reputation precedes them and they find themselves off the shortlist – no longer a prospect. And, what about those employees who dump on their bosses – forgetting their boss is one of their Facebook ‘friends’! Then there are the issues around employers like Ben Polis, the former CEO of Energy Watch who, in April this year, was sacked from his job because of racist, sexist and bigoted comments he made on Facebook. And, so the list goes on.

The truth is though, there are also plenty of opportunities and they’re increasing by the day as the number of Facebook users grows around the world.

While the 25 – 34 year age group makes up the highest proportion of users, it’s the 45 – 54 age group that had the greatest growth

For us at mivision, Facebook has created a raft of new readers from around the world and enabled us to report on stories from within the international eye care community.

“For a long time now, we have had the largest business-to-business eye care community on social media in the world,” said Todd Tai, Business Development Manager at mivision. “We have over 20,000 members on our Facebook page with a great number of followers from North America, South East Asia and Egypt as well as from Australia and New Zealand all connecting with us through Facebook then following our leads back to the stories we publish on our website. We’ve enabled eye care professionals from around the world to exchange experiences and professional insights. As a direct result of our Facebook presence we’ve been able to publish stories written for us by overseas optometrists, such as one on the devastating Pakistani floods in 2010.”

In August 2010, mivision ran an appeal on Facebook to raise funds for Pakistan, which had just experienced its worst natural disaster in history. Ifrah Bukhari, an optometrist from Lahore saw the appeal and contacted mivision with her story about the floods. mivision published the article along with photos she sent.

The strength of mivision’s Facebook page has also led to new business opportunities. mivision was appointed as the global social media sponsor of the 9th General Assembly of The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) to be held in Hyderabad, India this month, from 17-20 September.

The Figures

Facebook, if it hasn’t reached one billion users by the time you read this, will do so shortly after. That figure is staggering enough – but even more so when you consider that ‘the Great Firewall of China’, has blocked Facebook from its borders. When you do the sums that means one in six people in the world, including those who live in developing countries, are interacting with Facebook. These figures can’t be ignored.

As you’d expect, America has the greatest number of Facebook users in the world (155,707,900 as of 7 July 2012), representing a penetration of 50.19 per cent of the total population. Australia has just over 11 million Facebook users, representing a penetration of 51.79 per cent and the UK has over 30 million users. While most countries in the western world have a relatively stable Facebook population, in the developing countries the number of users is rapidly escalating. Vietnam experienced the greatest increase from April–July 2012 with an incredible growth rate of 58 per cent taking the number of people on Facebook in that country to almost 5.5 million. Mozambique, Somalia, Nigeria and Papua New Guinea also experienced significant growth. Interestingly, Japan’s Facebook community grew by 21.42 per cent.¹

This massive growth in user numbers highlights the potential that Facebook offers every business to grow both locally and internationally.

Not Just Consumer Marketing

Gina Lednyak the Director and Social Media Strategist at Lednyak & Associates, said although Facebook was initially developed as a personal networking site, it has proven to be a highly effective marketing tool for both consumer brands and business to business (B2B) companies.

“Consumer brands do exceptionally well on Facebook – people expect consumer brands to have a social media presence. I think mivision has proven how successful a powerful B2B social media strategy can be when executed properly. The publishers have recognised exactly who the target audience is and created content that is specifically directed at that audience’s interests, creating an engaged and active community.”

Relevance Required

She said a Facebook presence has to be relevant to the target audience and add value to its audiences’ lives. “When a brand stays true to the idea of adding value to people’s lives, it will always do well.”

According to statistics from the global social media analytics company socialbakers, Australia is the 20th biggest user of Facebook on the planet, just behind Egypt but ahead of Japan. Just over 64 per cent of the country’s entire online population uses Facebook.¹

While the 25–34 year age group makes up the highest proportion of users, it’s the 45–54 age group that had the greatest growth in the three months leading up to July 2012.¹

According to Ms. Lednyak, that’s important to know because this age group has traditionally been the hardest to reach and communicate with – and they’re big customers for the eyecare community.

She added that the quickest demographic to communicate via Facebook is 18-24. “The 18-24 market is the easiest to capture, and while strong brand loyalty may not have yet developed, the opportunity to capture and grow this demographic is incredibly strong.”

Hook into Facebook Now

According to Ms. Lednyak, now is the time for companies that are not on Facebook to develop a presence. “More and more businesses are directing their customers to Facebook rather than their websites because Facebook enables them to capture and interact with customers on a personal level.

“Using Facebook, a company can create brand authenticity – by having ‘conversations’ true brand affinity is created, emotionally connecting potential customers and existing customers with your business – your business becomes someone they can chat to in a non-threatening way, someone they can seek advice from and trust,” she said.

Ms. Lednyak said the number of people who have ‘liked’ a company’s Facebook page is becoming increasingly important to brand credibility. “It’s important to create a social media strategy and online brand presence now, each day that passes puts you behind your competitors.

“In a few years a Facebook community with 20,000 or 100,000 likes will have a massive upper hand over brands without a community just starting out online.
While the platform may one day change, the strategy of building a strong army for your brand will remain the same,” Ms. Lednyak explained.

How to Build a Community

According to webtrends, ads that pop up on the Facebook page of a target audience inviting people to become a page ‘friend’ have a significant impact when it comes to acquiring a solid Facebook member community. Seventy-five per cent will come from an invitation or an ad, 59 per cent from a recommendation and 49 per cent from searching.²

The social media marketer recommends using Facebook advertising selectively, with separate campaigns created to nurture existing members, acquire new members and target friends of existing members. Additionally, it says, within each advertising campaign, it is important to have different advertisements to maximise your impact. That’s because an average ad will have maximum return on investment in the first three days it runs. After that, the returns lessen.

As well as using advertising to acquire more Facebook community members, advertising or posting information on your Facebook page can be used to drive people to your business’ website and generate sales. According to webtrends, customers buy 36 per cent more products and services from a brand after ‘liking’ a product page.

Relevant Content

Importantly, the content of the post or ad you place on Facebook must be carefully considered. According to webtrends, most brands lose engagement with their audience because their ads contain promotional language such as ‘per cent off’, ‘coupon’ and ‘sale’. Once an ad generates a low level of engagement, Facebook’s ‘EdgeRank’ algorithm filters it from the news stream, further lessening its reach.

The way to get higher engagement is to use Facebook as it was first designed – as a social platform to generate conversations and encourage sharing among friends. As optometrists, it’s the perfect platform to initiate conversations or raise awareness on healthcare issues, rebates, eye care research, eyewear fashion, charitable works… the list goes on. By getting your existing friends to ‘like’ or comment on your post or ad, their friends will see – and benefit from – the information you’ve posted too. The hope then is that they will become a friend and soon a customer.

And that’s where the monetary value of Facebook becomes a reality. According to Ms. Lednyak because of the potential to build sales through Facebook, a company’s Facebook community can now be considered as a hard asset. “So, for example, mivision now has a hard asset of more than 20,000 potential customers – or soldiers for your business who will spread the word about your brand each time they communicate with you,” she said.

The Commitment

Most small businesses struggle to keep on top of day-to-day administration – they certainly don’t feel justified to allow an employee or manager to spend hours ‘playing around’ on the net. Yet for a small investment in time, the rewards can be significant. Ms. Lednyak recommends businesses spend a minimum of an hour a day building their Facebook site – but that doesn’t mean being glued to the keyboard uploading irrelevant comment just for the sake of having a presence.

“Some of that hour will be spent while you’re fulfilling your normal day’s activities or even out for a bite of lunch – consistently looking for opportunities to communicate with your customers means keeping Facebook and your online presence in mind and seeking out relevant information to post,” said Ms. Lednyak. “For example, you might see a whale breach during your morning run – so take a photo, upload it and talk to your Facebook community about a new lens that provides optimum vision on the beach!”

Free Marketing

Ms. Lednyak said that many businesses ask why it’s necessary to invest effort into social media and important to create an online community. “The answer is simple – once you’ve spent time building your network, you have a sustainable marketing tool that costs next to nothing to maintain and every time you need to get your message out to your target audience, you can do it for free.”

In reality, whether you are online or not, your customers and prospective customers are probably talking about you – so you might as well be part of the conversation, ready to answer the tricky questions if and when they arise. In doing so, you’ll avoid mistruths and instead have the opportunity to promote the value of your products and services in a personal, believable manner.

But beware, Facebook – or even social media as a whole – is not the be all and end all for your practice success – it’s just one element in an ongoing strategy that must include solid marketing, skilled professional consultation and honest, excellent customer service. It’s about building relationships and creating satisfaction levels among your customers that will encourage them to promote your business in whatever way they feel comfortable – whether it’s direct word of mouth, a letter to the newspaper or a comment on Facebook. And it’s about ensuring that everything you do for, and say to, your customers is relevant to their interests and needs.

References

1. Socialbakers.com

2. webtrends whitepaper/social; Facebook’s Best
Kept Secret: Building Conversions and Revenue
with Ads for Fans.