[AUDIO VERSION: I also recorded an audio version of this blog post. Click below to listen. Let me know if this is something you find helpful!]

Facebook has started rolling out a new streamlined design of Timeline for pages to be more consistent with profile design as well as on mobile.

First of all, note that the redesign of profiles happened more than a year ago. See my response then as I verbalized my concerns regarding whether this would be applied to brands.

This is actually something that was first tested for brands many, many months ago. So those of us who have been paying attention are more than prepared.

The change is mostly cosmetic. Facebook is moving information into different places, but they really aren’t creating anything new.

What you’ve likely heard most about is the disappearance of Facebook tabs. But even that, in my opinion, isn’t that big of a deal (again, I mentioned that over a year ago!).

Let’s take a quick look at the changes were made before getting to what I believe will be the most important update that has the most potential for positive impact.

[Tweet “Facebook redesigned Timeline for brands. Here’s one important change you need to know about…”]

An Overview of Changes

1) Single Column Format for Posts: Your Timeline is now on the right hand column, so you’ll no longer need to go back and forth to see posts on the left and right.

2) Left Column for Business Info: The left-hand column will include details about your business. Here you’ll see things like number of page likes, a map (if you have one), website address, hours of operation, contact info, friends who like your page, the “About” info, photos and videos.

3) Easy Access to Admin Tools: In the past, there was a panel at the top that pushed everything down. It’s actually quite annoying. Now you’ll get an admin navigation at the top that includes things like Page, Activity (notifications), Insights, Settings, Build Audience and Help. This navigation will exist no matter where you are within the page.

4) This Week: On the right hand side, you’ll see a quick overview of the number of ads running, number of page likes and post reach for the current week, number of unread messages and notifications.

5) Tabs Buried: Your tabs no longer exist as boxes immediately below your cover photo. They are now accessed within a “More” drop-down.

No, the Tabs Update Isn’t a Big Deal

You probably thought that my “one important change” would be regarding tabs. No, it’s not.

As I discussed over a year ago now, I don’t think this is a big deal. Yes, I think tabs are valuable for first impressions and acquisition when users come to your page for the first time.

But after that, only 2% of your fans ever return to your page. So if you don’t drive traffic to them, they make very little impact.

The key to the success of tabs was and will continue to be your ability to drive traffic to them. Use organic posts that drive people there. Create ads that drive people there, too.

The loss of tabs may actually increase engagement since your content will now be immediately below your cover photo. So there is a positive impact to consider here.

One Change That’ll Make the Biggest Impact

The changes I’ve mentioned so far are all cosmetic. They’re nice. The new design looks cleaner, and it’ll make management of pages easier.

But the one change I’m most excited about is a very minor detail…

I’ve said repeatedly that we obsess far too much over post-by-post Reach. It just isn’t that important.

But that’s been mainly Facebook’s fault. They throw that number at us at every turn, so it’s natural that we react the minute one post seems to be reaching fewer people.

The truth is that we should be posting multiple times per week — and hopefully multiple times per day. As a result, our focus should be more on the number of people we’re reaching during a given day or week (if we focus on Reach at all).

I tend to have a Daily Total Reach that is about 5-10 times that of the Total Reach of an individual post, and Weekly Total Reach is about 50-100 times.

Now, this is also influenced by advertising, so it would be helpful if Facebook would instead show us the Weekly Organic Reach (mine is closer to 10 times that of an individual post). But I remain optimistic this change is being made.

I’m holding out hope that this will help shift the perception of marketers away from their post-by-post Reach and towards larger sample sizes. Given user behavior and the fact that it’s impossible — filtering algorithm or not — to reach a high percentage of fans with a single post, this shift is necessary.

Your Turn

What do you think about these changes? Which do you think is most important?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Facebook Page Timeline Redesign: The One Important Change appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[The following is a guest post by Emeric Ernoult of AgoraPulse.]

This morning I received another email from a client who doesn’t want her Facebook contest app to require app installation and permissions from her participants. She believes this will reduce her conversion rate.

I’m not alone in this situation. Our friends at Woobox face the same questions over and over again

I explained to her that the app installation requirement was, by far, the best option to create value for her Facebook Page and offer the best possible experience to her fans. Last May, I published an entire blog post on this very subject.

Just to give you a little recap, here are the 5 main reasons why a Facebook App install requirement is the best way to go for your campaign:

1. It’s the only way to offer a social context within your app. Examples include comparing your quiz score with your friends’, seeing what your friends have voted for in a fan vote contest, or checking your friends’ entries in a photo contest. Without an app install, none of this is possible. There will be no fun social context in your app. Your participants’ experience will be okay at best, boring at worst, but never entertaining or fun.
2. It’s the best way to reward fans for inviting their friends. More about Facebook Contests and virality in this post.
3. It is the best way to reduce cheating and ensure you are recruiting genuine fans. Trust my experience with thousands of Facebook contests, cheating IS a serious issue.
4. App install is the only way to include a fan gate on mobile devices. In some instances, mobile users can make up one third of the overall number of a campaign’s participants. That’s an opportunity you don’t want to miss! You cannot have a like gate for a Facebook contest (i.e. force participants to like your page in order to enter) unless your participants have installed your app first (asking them to install the app is the only way to know whether they have already liked your page or not).
5. App install is the only way to leverage each participant’s data for the long term, and build a valuable database of fans and potential ambassadors to leverage later. I am a big proponent of Facebook CRM. There’s little long-term value to any campaign without it. If you don’t require the installation of a Facebook app, you won’t be able to track each participant’s activity throughout all of your campaigns and on your timeline. The data you will collect will be essentially useless. Are you really ready to invest a lot of time and money into your next Facebook campaign to just throw away all the data you’ll collect?

Offering a social context is one of Facebook’s unique advantages. In a Facebook Quiz, the social context offered by the app install will allow each participant to see how she is stacking up against her friends. This type of entertaining context would not be possible if she had not installed a Facebook app.

All right, enough of the pros and cons. Let’s get to the hard facts. At the end of the day, what’s really on your mind is whether or not requiring your Facebook contest participants to install your app will damage your conversion rate, right?

So, let’s look at the conversion rates for 6 of our most popular apps over thousands of campaigns run by thousands of different brands from September 1st, 2012 until August 1st, 2013.

Here’s the executive summary:

In order to be more transparent, I’m copying screenshots of the Facebook insights for each of these applications below.

In a nutshell, the average conversion rate is around 70%. The lowest average conversion rates belong to apps where there is usually nothing to win (Fan Vote). So, when it’s just for fun and there’s no benefit attached to giving away their profile information, fans will be more reluctant to do so. Duly noted.

The variations between campaigns can be very significant. The best get conversion rates close to 100%, whereas the worst can get as low as 30%.

On average, over an 11 month period, 78% of our Facebook quiz participants have installed the app. Median conversion being between 70 and 85%.

On average, over an 11 month period, 71% of our Facebook Personality Test participants have installed the app. Median conversion being between 60 and 80%.

On average, over an 11 month period, 71% of our Facebook instant win participants have installed the app. Median conversion being between 65 and 80%.

On average, over an 11 month period, 70% of our Facebook photo contest participants have installed the app. Median conversion being between 60 and 75%.

On average, over an 11 month period, 74% of our Facebook sweepstakes participants have installed the app. Median conversion being between 70 and 80%.

On average, over an 11 month period, 58% of our Facebook fan vote participants have installed the app. Median conversion being between 55 and 70%. This is the lowest score among all of our benchmarked apps, but this is also the only app for which there are generally no prizes offered.

First Takeaway

There can be a HUGE difference in terms of conversion rate from one campaign to another. So, what are the criteria separating the great campaigns from the not-so-great? The answer is simple, and can be summarized in two words: Trust and Reward.

The more your participants trust you, the more likely they are to give away their information. The more attractive your reward, the more likely they are to enter your campaign. Attractive doesn’t necessarily mean expensive. You only need to ensure they’ll be considered highly valuable by your audience.

The trust factor is a little trickier and is made of several different components:

• Your brand’s intrinsic credibility,
• Your campaign’s credibility, and
• Your transparency on how your participants’ data will be used

There’s not much you can do for your brand’s credibility in the short term. If you’re already a well-known and trusted brand, people will be more likely to trust you with their data. If you’re not well known and trusted yet, you’ll need to do well in the following two criteria.

Your campaign’s credibility will address one legitimate question on your participants’ minds, especially if you are not a globally trusted brand: Are these guys serious, or are they just trying to get my email address and Facebook credentials so they can spam me for the next 5 years?

Looking serious is the first thing you need to concern yourself with. Don’t be too cheap on your campaign’s design. If your visuals look like they’ve been created by some kid for $5 on Fiverr, it’ll be hard for your campaign to inspire trust. Good looking visuals should not cost you more than $100 if you find the right freelancer. This is a small investment that will make a big difference.

Concerning transparency, it’s pretty simple: Draft clear (and well written) rules, feature the winners of your previous campaigns and comply with all applicable laws. This should all go without saying, but surprisingly, many Facebook contests and sweepstakes don’t.

Your brand’s credibility, your campaign’s transparency and the attractiveness of your prizes will have a HUGE impact on the conversion rate. A well-known and trusted brand will achieve higher conversion rates, lesser known brands will have to work harder. Trips to the Caribbean will attract and convert more users than a bunch of coffee mugs. Makes sense.

Second Takeaway

An average conversion of 70 to 80% is not bad at all. If you look at Facebook’s own internal data, they consider 80% to be very high. In fact, only the best apps have conversion rates in the 80% range according to Facebook (Foursquare and songpop are cited as examples).

So, on average, your humble sweepstakes may get the same conversion rate as a giant brand like Foursquare. Not bad.

Third Takeaway

According to Hubspot, Sweepstakes overall entry conversion rates are typically between 20 and 40%.

When you see a 70 or 80% conversion for your Facebook sweepstakes or contest app, you may think, “I’m losing 20 to 30% of my potential participants!” Look at the numbers and think twice!

No sweepstakes or contests run on the web have a 100% conversion rate. According to our own internal data, simply asking for a first name and email address can drop your conversion rate by 20%. And each additional field you add (date of birth, Address, phone number, etc.) will add to the loss of conversion. A form with too many fields may make your conversion go as low as 30 to 35%.

On the other hand, once you’ve asked for a Facebook app install, the conversion rate on a simple form with less than 3 fields is between 90 and 100%. Once participants have installed a Facebook app to enter your campaign, they are very likely to fill-in a form as well, as long as it’s not unreasonably long.

The bottom line? Facebook app install conversions are generally no lower than that of a typical web form, and many times, your rate may be higher.

I’m convinced that the value behind Facebook is in building a stronger connection with fans you know. If you want to engage with your customers, you’re going to have to provide them with the best social experience Facebook can offer, and you just can’t do that without requiring an app install.

What do you think? Have your experiences with app installations and conversions been positive or negative?

The post The Truth About Facebook App Conversion Rates appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[The following is a guest post from Amanda Webb of SpiderWorking.com.]

I often find that businesses dive into using Facebook without having a plan in place. Their initial enthusiasm wears off and they either stop completely or start obsessing about numbers of Likes or how many people are talking about their page.

One statistic that I do think is worth obsessing about is how many leads you are getting from Facebook.

A lead could be something as simple as an email address, a customer coming in the door or something more qualified.  You could prompt a potential client or customer to provide you with more information so that you know how best to approach them and convert your lead into a sale.

Here are six ways that you can start capturing leads via Facebook…

1. Competitions

A competition of some kind is still one of the best things you can do to increase page Likes and generate leads. By using competition applications such as ShortStack you can gather extra information on potential customers.

Think about what information you need. If it’s an email address, make sure that you also get permission to contact them again. Depending on your business you will require different information; maybe you need to know where they live, what age group they fit into or something more specific.

Try to keep it simple. The more questions you ask, the fewer entries you will get. It can be a fine balance between getting to know more about your lead and putting them off completely.

It’s also important to choose a prize that will attract your target market. If you can give away your own product or service, this is ideal. If not, think carefully about what will attract them.

For example, if you are targeting women, a chocolate hamper might be the best choice. If you are targeting men, tickets to a sporting event might work well.

2. Add Calls To Action To Posts

We very often forget to sell via Facebook.

Yes, it’s true we shouldn’t drown our Facebook audience with sales posts, but you can sell if you choose the right language. Rather than creating an image full of text about your latest special offer, think about pairing it with a good image or a tip that enhances your message. Then be sure to add a phone number, email address or link depending on how to buy.

This example from a local pub, the Silken Thomas in Kildare, Ireland, is designed to appeal to those attending a nearby horse racing event.

3. Whisper Codes

If you are a retailer, you may want to encourage more people to come into your store as that’s where the lead conversion happens for you.

It’s still important to gather contact info so that you can get in touch with people directly, but you can physically cause customers to walk in the door using “whisper codes.”

A whisper code is a phrase that you share on Facebook that when repeated in store allows the customer to avail of a discount or a special offer.

Maybe you want to put together a deal, for example a free cookie with every cup of coffee or maybe a discount like the one below from Joyce’s Hardware Store.

Giving people an amusing phrase will also create a bit of a buzz in store when people repeat it.

4. Customized Tabs

You probably have a lead generation form on your website of some sort, whether it’s “Get our Newsletter,” “Contact Us” or “Apply Now.” It’s the way that you currently collect contact info for potential leads.

By adding tabs to your Facebook page you can also facilitate lead capture. Think about adding a “Contact Us,” “Book Now” or “Subscribe” tab, making it easier to capture leads without sending customers away from Facebook.

It’s easy to create a customized tab. I’m going to mention ShortStack again as I’m a massive fan, but what I like about their apps is that they work for both desktop and mobile users. There are some other great choices out there, too, including Pagemodo and Static HTML.

Here’s an example on Robert Redmond Photographer’s Facebook page. Notice he is asking which service the customer is interested in and when their Wedding date is when applicable.

One thing you have to remember with Facebook tabs is that people rarely visit them unless you link directly to them from your content or ads. You will need to work links to them into your posting schedule to ensure you capture leads.

5. Encourage Existing Customers to Become Brand Ambassadors

Your existing customers are possibly your best sales people. As with offline word of mouth (WOM) marketing, Facebook facilitates the endorsement of what you do.

Make sure your existing customers are active on your page. Ask them questions, thank them for their participation and give them good, relevant content they can share with their friends.

If you are an existing fan of Seasick Steve you are bound to want to buy his new album, but by combining his sales post with a video from the new album he is encouraging us to share with our friends.

6. Offers

I was delighted when the Facebook Offers tool was launched. It’s a great way to measure return on investment directly, but to turn it into a lead generation tool you’ll need to do a bit more.

Whether you are a bricks and mortar store or an online retailer, you should always choose the “Online Only” option when creating your Offer. This way you can collect more information about your customer and send them your own voucher.

Even if you don’t have a website you can set up a custom page on Facebook or even something as simple as a form within a Google doc to collect information. This way you will know exactly who is claiming your Offer and have the opportunity to get all of the relevant information you need to help your potential client or customer.

Here’s an offer that was snapped up pretty quickly for The Dublin Meat Company.

How About You?

Please let me know your experiences in the comments below!

About Amanda Webb
Amanda Webb from Spiderworking.com offers social media help for small business. She is also the co-founder of Blog Awards Ireland and is about to launch a new joint project WeTeachSocial.

The post 6 Ways To Capture Leads From Facebook Pages appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Facebook has made it clear that it will be taking more aggressive steps to remove misclassified personal profiles used for business purposes. As a result, millions of business owners who are incorrectly using personal Facebook profiles to market their businesses are confronted with two choices: 1) Convert your personal profile to a business Page, or 2) risk getting deleted.

It’s not particularly surprising to me that there are holdouts who aren’t going down without a fight. They insist that using a personal profile is better for their business than a Facebook Page. This post is for you.

You’re only hurting yourself and your business. There’s a long list of reasons why a Facebook Page is better for you than a personal profile. If, after reading this, you still don’t get it… well… Maybe getting deleted isn’t such a bad thing.

Here is just a sampling of the many benefits associated with a Facebook business Page over a personal profile.

‎1) Facebook Insights: Access to Mounds of Data

Let me get this straight… As a business on a personal Facebook profile, you have no access to Facebook Insights. You are unable to export and digest the thousands of rows and columns of information that can help you understand your customer, what they like and don’t like, where they are from and when they are online.

So, what… you go by gut instinct? How exactly do you measure success and failure? If you’re a serious business, you need hard data to drive your strategy. And if you don’t have hard data, you aren’t a serious business.

2) Facebook Tabs and Contests

With Facebook tabs, you can use apps to explain more about who you are. Provide a video introduction. Feature your products. Provide a newsletter opt-in form. Highlight the history of your company.

Without this on a personal profile, how exactly do you do this? You’re limited only to your posts to tell your story and sell your products.

Oh, and how exactly do you plan to run contests from a personal profile? You can’t. Not, of course, without violating Facebook terms. But I guess at this point, you don’t care a whole lot about Facebook’s terms.

3) Facebook Offers

Using a Facebook profile? Whoops, you can’t use Facebook Offers. So good luck on your strategy of pasting a link, driving them to your website to promote your deal.

4) Profiles Limited to 5,000 “Friends”

I don’t care if you’re a small business with only one location. Everyone has plans to grow, and every business should have the potential growth to want to reach more than 5,000 people on Facebook. If you do, you’ll need to scale.

5) Profiles Look Unprofessional

It looks sloppy. It’s bad planning. It screams, I don’t know what I’m doing! And these are not the messages that you want to be sending to customers and potential customers.

6) Access to Advertising

You know, that EdgeRank Bogeyman. The truth is that EdgeRank impacts personal profiles as well as business Pages. By default, your “friends” are set to view “most” of your updates (not “all”).

Do you think your posts are reaching more than 16% of your “friends” with your personal profile? Prove it. Oh, wait. You don’t have Facebook Insights.

If you use a Facebook Page, you can reach more of your Fans and you can reach friends of those Fans with Promoted Posts. You can create ads that target people with relevant interests and attract new fans and new customers.

You can do all of this on a very minimal budget. If you’re serious about growing your business, reaching new people and selling your products, you should be open to Facebook advertising.

7) Privacy Considerations

Maybe you aren’t concerned about the privacy of your customers. Maybe you are ticked by the fact that you have no access to this private information as a business Page.

But my guess is that if you were to poll your customers, they don’t want you to have access to this stuff. By using a profile instead of a Page, you’re inviting privacy complaints.

8) Ability to Assign Admin Roles

• Insights Analyst: View Insights
• Advertiser: View Insights and create ads
• Moderator: All of the above, plus send messages as the Page and respond to and delete comments
• Content Creator: All of the above, plus create posts as the Page, edit the Page and add apps
• Manager: All of the Above, plus Manage Admin Roles

If you have an employee or multiple employees who you want to help manage the account, you simply assign roles to them. You would make them “Content Creators” or “Moderators” so that if they leave the company on bad terms, they don’t destroy your business’ reputation in the process.

If you need help with advertising, you can also bring in a consultant and assign them the Advertiser role. Or only allow someone to see statistics as an Insights Analyst.

What do you do if you are using a personal profile? Give them your username and password. Good luck with that.

9) Native Facebook Scheduling

If you are promoting your business as a Facebook profile, you don’t have access to native scheduling. Sure, you could use a third party tool, but your posts will always appear with that third party’s formatting and icon. It will be clear that it wasn’t posted from Facebook.

It simply looks better when your posts come from Facebook. The difference in engagement may not be huge, but there is a difference.

10) Connection to Facebook Places

By setting up your business as a Place, customers can also check in, alerting their friends that they are at your store or restaurant. This is a great way to allow your customers to naturally promote your business.

Oh, you’re using a personal profile? You don’t have access to this. Maybe you have a separate Place because a customer was nice enough to set it up, but it won’t be connected to your profile. Bad form.

11) Business Relevant Information

It’s just silly. When you set up a business as a personal profile, your business now has a gender and a birthday. When you set it up as a business Page, it has a category, a mission statement, products, awards and Founded date. No birthday. No gender.

If you want your customer to learn more about your company and what you do, set up a business Page. If you don’t, set up a birthday and gender.

12) Business Relevant Options

With a business Page, you can restrict your audience by country and age. You have access to moderation and profanity blacklists to control the conversation.

You set up your business as a personal profile? No access to this stuff.

13) Use of Third Party Tools

These tools also assume you set up your business the right way with a Facebook Page. Set up as a personal profile? No such access.

14) Avoid Being Shut Down

Well, then risk getting shut down. If running your business through your profile is so great, you will lose something of value. Facebook will take it away.

If what you are doing is something worth keeping, you need to convert your profile to a Page. If you are not concerned about that risk, it tells me that your efforts were never worth saving to begin with.

What do you think? Are there other benefits to using a business Page over a personal profile? List them below!

The post 14 Benefits of a Facebook Business Page Over a Personal Profile appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

NOTE: A NEW infographic has been created with updated dimensions for Timeline, News Feed, mobile, desktop, posts and ads. It’s the only infographic you’ll need for Facebook dimensions! SEE IT HERE.

Now that Facebook Timeline for Pages is a reality, it’s important to optimize it by using the proper image sizes. So below I’ve put together an infographic (feel free to pin it!) that highlights the appropriate dimensions for the following:

• Cover Photo
• Profile Photo
• Custom Tab Photo or Logo
• Shared Photo
• Highlighted Photo
• Milestone Photo
• Custom Tab Page

So, here it is. All of the dimensions for Facebook Timeline for Pages that you’ll need. Feel free to bookmark and share for future reference!

Also See: The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Timeline For Pages
Timeline Dimensions, Cover Photo Rules, Free Tab Icons,
How to Choose and Execute Apps and MORE!

Pin It

The post Reference of Dimensions for Facebook Timeline For Pages [Infographic] appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.