Facebook’s rapid ascent to popularity has been something the world has never seen before – growing at rates that make experts stand back in awe. Millions of success stories have come from businesses all over the world, claiming that they have grown their revenue exponentially due to the reach of Facebook.
The Facebook Model is great for all businesses because it makes engaging with people simple – serving as a powerful tool for marketers and businesses.
Engagement is the frequency in which you interact with your customers. Facebook has built a platform that allows people to “engage” all the time from anywhere. The Facebook mobile app allows people to “engage” on the go.
Whether they’re in line at the grocery store, at home on the couch or at work, they can stay connected. Sometimes, people are more engaged with Facebook than they are in real life! Businesses can take advantage of this, and they should.
Businesses now have the chance to interact with their customers more frequently than ever before – and on a platform that their customers are constantly looking at. Engaging customers using Facebook is drastically different from engaging them using emails. For example, you could send an email to your customers three times a day – but after Day One (and three emails), you’ll probably start to see a significant amount of unsubscribes. With Facebook, once a user becomes a “fan” of your
page, any time you post something to your wall – it appears in that fan’s news feed. The very same news feed that they check five times a day.
Looking at your message five times has the potential for huge user engagement. The beauty of this is that it’s not intrusive. Blasting multiple emails to your users throughout the day would be considered intrusive. Whereas multiple Facebook posts just means you have a lot to say! Don’t get the wrong message, email marketing has a place within your marketing toolbox – but using a platform like Facebook allows you to engage with your customers on a deeper personal level.
A few months ago, Facebook released the Facebook Pages App, which gives you valuable insight and data into your fan page. Some key data points of note are: the reach, people en gaged and people talking about this. This is really powerful data. This allows you to gauge how interesting your posts are and see which posts stirred the greatest reaction from your fans. Given this type of data, you can refine the type of information you post to your feed.
Did you know that interaction rates for photos on Facebook are 200 percent higher than any other content types?
For golf courses, this means that you should be posting more photos of your players, holes, lifestyles and restaurant. Nothing says “Come enjoy dinner at the club tonight” more than a beautiful picture of a steak. We are a very visual culture; using this to your advantage is just plain smart.
Statistics also show that the longer the Facebook status, the higher the interaction rate. This means that every once in a while you should write something more in depth than “Member-Guest just started.” Write a short story describing the Member-Guest and who is defending. You’ll be surprised at just how fast you can write a paragraph that can engage a bunch of users.
Don’t be ashamed to ask your customers to “like” your club’s page. Publish an icon or text in the club newsletters, emails or even ask in person. Asking users to “like” your page increases your interaction rate on average by 216 percent.
More “likes” equal a better chance at customer engagement – 50 percent of users who will interact with your content will have done so within the first hour after a posting. This means you should try to find the ideal times to post your content throughout the day that gets your club the most interaction.