Off the radar with wacky look

5:30 AM Saturday Apr 2, 2011

 

Air New Zealand’s wacky marketing strategy is designed as a cost-effective way to get noticed. But marketers are asking where that leaves this great Kiwi brand.

How does a comparatively small airline like Air New Zealand make a bang in a big market like the United States?

Chief executive Rob Fyfe notes that one 30-second ad during the Superbowl would wipe out the airline’s entire marketing budget.

Space in traditional media is expensive. “We can’t match United Airlines, Delta or probably even Qantas,” he said.

So the airline’s approach is to stand out with a mixture of online and social media.

The hope is that viral media campaigns will spread like wildfire and, like the recent duet between muppet mascot Rico and singer Snoop Dogg, get picked up by mainstream media.

The airline’s online content is a mixed bag, as Fyfe admits – not everyone will like everything.

But the hope is that people who choose to view clips or other material will think they are fun, will associate that with Air New Zealand, and if they’re planning a trip to New Zealand will choose the airline.

On a purely retail-focused view of “getting bums on seats”, the strategy makes good sense.

But some in the marketing industry are looking askance at the state of the iconic Air New Zealand brand and wondering if it has lost its way.

One branding consultant says there are dangers in using controversy and “smash and grab” cam-paigns – retail-focused strategies designed to get cash registers ringing.

These have been popular with many companies as they try to rebuild after the global financial crisis.

In Air New Zealand’s case, there are the added factors that they’re using controversial products on new media and are dealing with an extraordinarily strong local brand.

Midway through the last decade, Fyfe was drawing admiration for classy, innovative approaches to traditional branding campaigns, working closely alongside its branding agency Colenso BBDO.

The “Nothing to Hide” commercials – featuring staff in body paint and G-strings and even featuring Fyfe in a cameo – marked a shift to a retail-focused campaign using Colenso’s retail division, .99.

Some content in spots featuring All Blacks has touched base with the old brand values.

Yet the focus hasn’t been on those traditional values but on a crude puppet specialising in double-entendres.

Last month, Rico appeared with rapper Snoop Dogg in an online clip that has been picked up by American breakfast TV, which Fyfe points out gave coverage you could not buy.

This week, 80s aerobics star Richard Simmons featured in the airline’s in-flight safety video – in a duet with polarising TV star Paul Henry.

Fyfe agrees there are risks in the marketing strategy and says that the adventurous approach could become “too successful”.

The danger is that offbeat ads aimed at niche online audiences are being picked up and, as Fyfe says, “leaching” into editorial coverage in mainstream media with a different market.

Toby Talbot is executive creative director at DDB advertising and, in a previous role at branding agency Colenso BBDO, worked closely with Air New Zealand.

He applauds the airline for taking risks and says it is being talked about, scoring big hits online.

But there is a danger if different ad campaigns are run in unison.

“You must stay within your brand and consistent in the way the brand talks to people. People should love the brand, not flinch,” says Talbot.

Retired Colenso founder Roger MacDonnell is more direct. “My own view is that they have lost their way.”

“They want to be in the new media, they want to be new and be different. Which is fine, but I don’t like what they’re doing.” he said.

“Whether you like it or not, Air New Zealand is an iconic and much-loved New Zealand brand. I’ve seen one [ad] featuring Richie McCaw and Graham Henry – but it works because it connects back to the core brand.”

James Bickford – the managing director for the New Zealand arm of branding specialists Interbrand – also sounded a note of warning.

“Smash and grab” promotions like those employed by Air New Zealand could erode the brand and Air New Zealand could lose the real essence of who they are.

New Zealand was a small nation that was extremely passionate about the Air New Zealand brand.

If Air New Zealand continued on its present path, consumers would be confused about what it stood for.

It was fine to have distinct approaches for different media, Bickford said, but Air New Zealand wasn’t pulling together the threads.

Fyfe acknowledges there are risks in the strategy to stand out at all costs but has no concerns about the effect on the wider brand.

Richard Simmons, Snoop Dogg and Rico the rodent puppet reflect New Zealand-ness, he says.

“You come back to brand personality as a small airline and the notion of being yourself,” he said – citing Prime Minister John Key as exhibiting the same traits.

“We think that is what New Zealand is about. It’s a little quirky – a little bit different.

“Social media campaigns have to stand out. A lot of content we put on social media – where people actively choose to watch – we would not put on TV,” he said.

Fyfe’s view reflects the world of retail advertising where turnover is fast and relatively cheap. If campaigns don’t work, they’re quickly pulled.

Last year, Air New Zealand took the approach further. It dropped its affiliation to a single agency, invited freelancers and agencies to pitch ideas direct to clients, and ran its own creative department.

Perhaps significantly, Air New Zealand has reverted to a “lead agency” relationship with Colenso’s .99.

Fyfe’s background working for British broadcast company ITV Digital may be an added factor for his interest in content.

Perhaps more than any other New Zealand chief executive, Fyfe takes an intimate role in his company, which is 75 per cent owned by taxpayers.

Surprisingly – given that the CEO appears virtually naked in a TV ad and the annual report includes five photos of Fyfe – he sees himself as an introvert.

But Air New Zealand itself has a vibrant image, he says.

“I have to lead by example. Any CEO embodies the brand and personality of the company.”

This blogpost is written by Denise Wakeman

I think it’s a great idea! I will try it! Watch this space for feedback!

In the last couple of months I stumbled on a great way to generate a lot of activity and buzz on my Facebook page. In my post on 6 Ways to Engage Your Facebook Fans, #5 was about inviting your fans to share links.

5. Invite your fans to share links to their site/blog/fan page/twitter. My monthly Brag About Your Blog Day has become quite popular. Recently over 200 people bragged about and posted links to their blog. It was an awesome way to learn about what people are doing, what their interests are find potential JV partners and guest posting opportunities.

I just hosted another Brag About Your Blog Day and the results surpassed last month. Nearly 300 people posted links to their blog along with a short description about the topic of their blog.

This screenshot was captured about 24 hours after I initiated the event.

As a result of this one day “event”:

* Added over 130 new fans to my page
* Over 436 people clicked the link to my page in 24 hours
* Lots of people (I didn’t count) tweeted about the event
* The post was shared on countless profiles
* I got a great testimonial from a former client
* Everyone was thrilled that they got to promote their site and said nice things about me which made me feel warm and fuzzy and happy!

You can do this too. It does not take a lot of effort and it’s a lot of fun. I love seeing who shows up, what they have to say, and what they’re writing about.

Here are the steps I took that you can easily model:

1. Come up with a clever hook. What can you invite people to share on your page? A picture? A link to their favorite xxxx? A link to their book? A tip on your topic? It’s got to be about them for this to work really well, in my opinion.

2. How often will you host the event? I like making it a monthly (or weekly) event that people can look forward to. I started getting questions about when I was going to host the new Brag day. Since I’m actively engaged with the thread throughout the day, I prefer doing it monthly.

3. If you’re creative or can spend a few bucks, get a graphic image designed to help draw attention to your event. You’ll be able to use it on blog posts, Facebook, twitter, your website.

4. Craft your copy and post it in the morning. I like to give BABD a full day of my attention (dipping in throughout the day). Be patience because due to Facebook’s mysterious algorithms, you may not see activity right away. Click the like button and post your own comment to start the ball rolling.

5. Create a tracking link with budurl.com or bit.ly to use in your promotions so you can track your efforts. (click on the date/time of the post to get the unique URL for the post)

6. Let everyone outside of your Facebook network know what you’re doing.

* Tweet about it (3-4 times thoughout the day)
* Post info to groups you belong to on LinkedIn and Facebook
* Got an email list? Send an announcement with a link to the direct wall post. This one tactic alone will net you new fans. In order to comment or like and contribute to the wall post, they have to like your page first.
* Post in discussion groups and forums you belong to
* Write a blog post

7. Participate. Once you start to get activity, pop onto your page throughout the day and “like” every single comment. Add a your own comments, respond to questions, thank people for playing. When you like and comment, a notification goes to everyone who has already commented. This brings them back to get updates AND increases your visibility in the Facebook News Feed (very important!).

8. Read every comment. I found a wonderful testimonial from a former client. That’s gold so I did a screen capture with SnagIt in case I want to use it later.

9. Follow up. Report on what happened. Feature some of the people you connected with. Write another blog post about your event.

Did I forget anything? What would you add for getting the word out?

A lot of people said they wanted to “steal” this idea. Hey, go for it! I don’t consider it stealing. I’m sure I got the idea from someone else as well.

If you do host something like this on your Facebook Page, please let me know.

LONDON–A day might be coming when the power of Facebook means that major companies no longer bother with their own Web sites.

That was the startling if self-promotional possibility sketched out by Stephen Haines, commercial director of Facebook’s U.K. operation, while speaking today at the Technology for Marketing and Advertising conference here. Essentially, Haines argued, companies’ interactions with their customers could take place so often on Facebook that company Web sites would fall by the wayside.

To bolster his argument, Haines showed statistics comparing how many times Facebook users have clicked a company’s “like” button with how many times per month people visited that company’s Web site. For Starbucks, a top Facebook advertiser, the ratio was 21.1 million likes to 1.8 million site visitors. For Coca-Cola, it’s 20.5 million compared with 270,000; for Oreo, 10.1 million compared with 290,000; and for Dr. Pepper, it’s 4.1 million compared with 325,000.

It’s no surprise to hear that Facebook, trying to convert its social-networking dominance into corresponding popularity with advertisers, likes a future in which it’s the hub of commercial activity. In a sign that bodes well for that ambition, Haines’ talk drew an overflowing crowd of marketers eager for any tips on how they, too, can capitalize on Facebook usage. In the U.K., millions of Facebook users spend an average of 28 minutes per day on the site, Haines said.

His idea isn’t totally outrageous. After all, plenty of individuals and companies rely on existing online services rather than building everything from scratch. At the individual level, tools such as Google’s Blogger or Yahoo’s Flickr are easier to set up than a custom-built blog or photo-sharing site. Facebook interactions let companies tap into a wealth of customer information and a communication channel, and there’s no need to coax a user to set up yet another username and password.

But the prospect of Facebook becoming powerful enough to make a sort of parallel Web inside its own walled garden is also no doubt fearful in some ways. Sure, the social-networking site is embedded increasingly deeply into people’s lives, but relying on it for customer communications means subordinating a key part of a businesses’ operations to a middleman that has shown no shortage of ambition. Many companies are happy to use Microsoft products and Google services, but companies and antitrust regulators get antsy when too much power is concentrated in one corporation’s hands.

There’s also the possibility that Facebook users, not just companies, might get cold feet. Thus far the site has continued to attract members despite controversies over privacy and other matters, but it’s possible the company might go too far.

It’s music to marketers’ ears to hear Haines say Facebook’s targeting tools can tell companies exactly who are the “22-year-olds in Surrey who like football and cricket.” But Facebook users might not find it so melodic when finding out that companies, not just their friends, have a keen interest in what favorites they list on their profile.

Even if Facebook doesn’t somehow supplant lots of Web sites, though, there’s no denying the social network is becoming more important to marketing, and it’s adapting to the idea.

Facebook has a variety of tools available to marketers:

• Ways to offer free samples to customers, something ketchup maker Heinz has used.

• The ability to attract the attention of smartphone users making local check-ins. Clothing retailer The Gap gave away 10,000 pairs of jeans to the first 10,000 customers to use the Facebook local check-in service, and Mazda sold 100 cars–exceeding expectations–with a 20-percent-off offer at five U.K. auto dealerships, Haines said.

• The ability to build e-commerce sites into Facebook pages. Max Factor didn’t want to lose visitors to its Facebook page to another site when customers were ready to buy something, so a partnership with Amazon lets the customers buy products without leaving.

• “Reach block” ads that change as many as five times in a 24-hour period to send a sequence of ad messages to Facebook users.

• Surveys that let companies try to engage customers in company decisions. Vitaminwater used voting, among other mechanisms, to generate 1.3 million “connections” with possible customers during its “find a new flavor” marketing campaign.

• Applications built atop Facebook’s interface that let companies create custom-made interactive programs.

On top of that, Facebook is experimenting with new ideas. One is “newsfeed story ads,” in which commentary that ordinarily would appear as updates in a Facebook user’s news feed appears in advertisements, too. Another is “application social context ads,” in which an app can show a user which of his or her contacts also is using it.

Regardless of the extent to which Facebook actually replaces in-house Web sites, Facebook as a marketing channel isn’t for everybody. Naturally, Haines had plenty of examples of companies that have benefited from Facebook’s marketing potential, but he also had cautions for those thinking of using Facebook seriously in this way.

First, be prepared for a long-term commitment to keep a site on Facebook lively.

“If it doesn’t change, it’s probably not worth dabbling” with a Facebook site, Haines said. For a social-networking site to be useful in marketing, it’s got to “stimulate” the customers, he said.

Second, plan to respond to very public criticism.

“If you ignore [criticism], it’s the worst thing you can do,” he said. “Be prepared for it, because it will happen.”

Ideally, good responses can turn critics into fans, though.

Third, companies should be judicious about the fine line between engaging customers and annoying them. One company, which Haines didn’t name, had 200,000 people liking its page.

“They sent sent seven messages a day,” he said. “Their fan base dropped off.”

Stephen Shankland
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science.

Check out the updates on Twitter: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-earthquake/4693634/Quake-info-on-Twitter

When we talk more, we believe more people will listen, but the opposite is the truth. Everybody wants to be heard and if you just talk and don’t listen, you miss opportunities in your daily life – and in Social Media.

Check out many Twitter messages and LinkedIn forum posts: “My company does this” and “I can do this for you”. Do you think this approach works?

The most important question for anybody is consciously or subconsciously: What is in it for ME?

Always remember this when you want to talk to your target market – or even to your loved ones. Everybody wants to be heard and the best you can do for your people is to listen first, not talk first. Listen to their problems and questions. Then you can come in and help them. Give advice, give genuine opinions without asking yourself what’s in it for you. Your clients and target market (and loved ones) will thank you for it.

How will they thank you for it? By following you, trusting you, liking you and eventually buying from you.

That’s what Social Media Marketing is all about. Look out for opportunities to help the people on your forums of choice and don’t spam them with your company messages. This is how you gain their trust and how you become known as an expert in your field.

Start with it today! Social Media is called Social Marketing, but it is more so Social Communication. Bonding, trusting, sharing, acknowledging, listening, discussing, building groups, making friends, helping are the most important marketing methods in the Social Media realm of Web 2.0.

I hear it regularly at local networking meetings: why should a local business worry about blogging?

Most small business owners still believe that blogging is a) only for crazy online geeks with big glasses and b) won’t be of any use to small businesses that provide services or sell to mainly local markets.

Point a) I know many bloggers that are quite normal people who have families, go on holiday, drive normal cars, go to restaurants, have friends (yes, it is possible as an Internet geek to have real life friends!) and live a normal life, just like you. So don’t judge them on the stereotype (although I agree it’s funny).

Point b) In this post I would like to point out the advantages of blogging to YOUR business. You could be a real estate salesperson blogging about the market and newest listings, a coach blogging about midlife crisis, a consultant about tips on finding a new job or a cosmetic institute blogging about the latest eye shadow fashion.

The main thing about having a blog is to attract the right kind of people to your website or blog, the people who likely love what you have on offer – either your knowledge or your goods. You could have tons of people visiting your website, but if they are not targeted – people who are not in your target audience – you gain nothing from it, just a fleeting visitor who vanishes into thin air within two seconds.

If you are a dating coach and you regularly blog about dating tips, how to dress for a date, dating body language, dating psychology and so on, chances are that you will get the attention of single folks who are eager to read your newest advice – and eventually book an appointment for a consultation with you.

Chances also are that other businesses who have something to do with dating, for example men advice forums (like Askmen.com or similar) may find some gems in your post and link to you – bingo, and you have started to become more important in the online world and your blog or website will be ranked better due to this link. The more you have the better it is, but don’t fall for these weird emails from foreign people who ask you for a reciprocal link to their dodgy website that sells even more dodgy products. If the other website’s content has nothing to do with your content it won’t give you any advantage, the opposite can be the case. So beware.

When you have your own blog for your business make sure you research what your target market wants to know. Ask them when they come through the door of your shop or send them a survey (great free survey tool is http://www.surveymonkey.com) This tool has a weird name, but is used by many large companies as well as small ones.

If you are a fitness coach, the amount of topics about weight loss is sheer endless and you actually offer a kind of community service to blog about your fitness and diet advice. It would be crazy if you didn’t make use of a blog to show off your expert knowledge, build relationships with your readers and even offer your products or consultations occasionally. But be aware and don’t stuff your blog posts with constant “buy this” or “order that”.

A blog is there for information and relationship building in the first place. Remember you talk to people who look to you to find help with their problems. Once you have build relationships and you use an integrated marketing approach (including email marketing marketing and opt in reports and freebies) you will earn money with your knowledge and attract more clients who are keen to sign up with you.

If you get a blog from your webdesigner, make sure that it’s connect to social networks. There are many plugins (loosely translated as a connector) that help blog visitors to share your post with other people. If you mention “plugins”, your web developer will know what you are talking about…

If someone, for example, loves your post on how to loose weight without starving yourself, they can “retweet” it to their followers on Twitter. Twitter is a ultra popular Social Media tool that millions of people use daily. Many people keep the window of Twitter open throughout the day, always ready to read about something new or interesting. If your post gets re-submitted to a large group of people, chances are that other people will tell others about it, too, and you have quite a viral effect with your one post. Other people, who have never heard about you, will come to your blog or website and read what you have to say. And maybe even become your customers…

Another thing to ask your webdesigner for is the RSS feed to your blog. With this feed your loyal website visitors can sign up to receive all your future blog posts straight away after posting. There are different options on how they can receive them (in a reader or per email) and you can discuss this with your webdesigner). It is important to have this function so that you can start building relationships.

“Heike, I’m located in xxx and all my customers are locals. Why should I blog? I don’t need to get website visitors from the other side of the globe”, you may say now.

Becoming an authority in your field is a great thing, if you are recognized in Iceland, in the Seychelles or in your hometown, your website will get a better ranking when you have optimized your keywords that describe what you do, offer or write about. Your local people may well put in a search term, such as “Hamilton real estate”, into the search engine and if you have optimized your blog posts’ keywords, chances are your post will come up for the person to read.

Additionally, never really discard selling globally! I know it sounds scary, but it’s sometimes even easier than locally because there are so many people out there maybe looking for exactly your tools and knowledge while your locals might not even care. So don’t close your eyes to the opportunity, especially when you offer a service, such as coaching, consulting, training, etc. You’d be amazed how many people train with overseas institutes nowadays or buy wares from foreign countries. It might be time to open up your mind about the opportunities worldwide.

The Internet has made it possible for us to cross borders, communicate with people from around the globe and to sell and buy easily from other countries, so keep your mind open about this. If you would like to have more information on this, please send me an email.

Summing up, blogging is a great tool if you are a local business targeting local people just as much as global audiences. Be brave, try it and you will reap the rewards of getting a better website ranking, more targeted visitors to your blog, more inquiries and connections.

Some hot news from Hubspot: as Facebook and LinkedIn already cater for businesses and their communications with the public, Twitter is now rolling out a specific Business Centre to help businesses with their client relations even better than before.

Some businesses already employ staff members to manage customer services and complaint issues via Twitter with those staff being online on Twitter all day long to deal with clients in 140 signs or less, so the new Business Centre functions will be a more streamlined and customizable solution for many businesses. Read more here: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/5967/Twitter-Gets-Business-Savvy-with-New-Business-Center.aspx?source=Blog_Email_[Twitter+Gets+Busines]

This is a welcome addition to Twitter and will make it more competitive in it competition with Facebook.

This article is by our team member, Eleanor Marks Prior:

No business man would stop thinking about great innovations for their business. Whether you are in  a small business or a big one, you are looking for advice on how to make more profits, or you’ve never stopped researching how other successful businesses are taking advantage of their success. We could never deny that the new online marketing techniques have a great role. There has been a lot of craze and hype in the media recently about the impact of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. While some of it is overstated much of what is going on could be called a revolution in the way people do business around the world.

Many people are jumping on the Twitter bandwagon, for example, and are opening up accounts, but few have any real idea of what to do once they get into the Twitter world–and the same with Facebook. Especially when it comes to business many business owners simply get an online presence and hope for the best. Even fewer take any real advantage of YouTube as a free advertising vehicle, or even know about what article marketing is.

All these social media sites can help you drive masses of traffic to your website. This is much like people coming in off the street in a busy business district to browse in your store. Once they are in the door the chances that they will buy something are pretty good. The same thing can be done to attract people to your small business online. You just have to learn the ways of the social media and social networking world.

Many small business owners think social media is only useful for large brands, like Dell or Southwest Airlines. The truth is any small business that effectively invests time in social media marketing can improve customer loyalty and increase the best kind of marketing there is: word of mouth.

Social media makes businesses more accessible and personable to customers and potential customers. It enables small businesses to maintain long term relationships and connections, increase referrals and increase trust. Used correctly, social media is extremely powerful for establishing and growing an online reputation.

I just read  this great article in Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero’s Ezine, Copywriting TNT. As a graduate of Lorrie’s Shefactor Bootcamp I’m a great fan of hers and wanted to share this post with you:  

Blogs Are the NEW Secret Weapon for Reaching Your Tarket. Just like you, I hate being marketed to. Every day we’re bombarded with over 3,500 marketing messages. And frankly I’m sick of it! But blogs are different. Blogs are a two-way conversation between blogger and bloggee (plus all the readers in between). Through commenting and cross-linking, you can share feedback. You can build your network. You can become, dare I say it, an Internet celebrity!

See, blogs add humanity and instantaneous expression to the web. Like ezines, blogs are a way for your customer to get to know you.

However, unlike ezines, blogs help you with search engine rankings. Did you hear me? I said, unlike ezines, blogs help you with search engine rankings. That’s a big one.

Entrepreneur Magazine, Business Week, even the FCC (Federal Trade Commission) all believe blogs are here to stay. Recently Michael Powell, chairman of the FCC, started one. His initial post drew over 30,000 readers. A Microsoft spokesperson says Bill Gates is considering starting a blog. And filmmaker Michael Moore built a blog to promote his controversial movie, Fahrenheit 9/11.

But who has time to read a blog anyway? Exactly! The job of a blog is to cut through the information overload and deliver searchable, relevant and current content. BlogAds.com recently conducted a survey of over 17,000 blog readers. Here’s what they report:

• Blog readers are older and more affluent. 61% of blog readers are over 30, and 75% make more than $45,000 a year.

• Blog readers are more cyber-active. 54% of their news consumption is online. 21% are themselves bloggers and 46% describe themselves as opinion makers.

• Blog readers are media-mavens. 21% subscribe to the New Yorker magazine, 15% to the Economist, 15% to Newsweek and 14% to the Atlantic Monthly.

• Whether on the left or right, blog readers have traits in common that often are absent in today’s public spaces: passion and initiative.

• Blog readers have apathy towards traditional news sources. 82% say that television is worthless. 55% percent say the same about print newspapers. 54% say the same about print magazines.

• Meanwhile, 86% say that blogs are either useful or extremely useful as sources of news or opinion. 80% say they read blogs for news they can’t find elsewhere. 78% read because the perspective is better. 66% value the faster news. 61% say that blogs are more honest.

• Blog readers appear united in their dissatisfaction with conventional media and their rabid love of blogs.

Don’t you want to be a blogger too? How about looking at some samples of the good, the bad and the bizarre?

Model citizen blogs: http://www.marketingsecrets.com/blog/ – John Reese’s blog. Hey, the guy just made $1,080,496.37 online in a single day. Here’s a good rule of thumb. If Reese is doing it, you should be too.

http://www.talkbiz.net/ramblings/weblog.php – Copywriter Paul Myers keeps us up-to-date on SPAM and other Internet marketing nightmares.

http://www.bookedsolidu.com – Michael Port’s new streamlined and simplified community helps you get booked solid. His old site, Booked Solid Referral Network, was just too big. This one is amazing! You’ll love it.

My Blog: http://www.redhotblogging.com – my blog today.

Bizarro Blog: Jeff Bridges’ site is considered a “blog.” He uses “hand-written” graphics that make it a unique and clever site! (Yes, really.) http://www.jeffbridges.com

I dipped my toe into the blogging pool a few years ago. Now I’ve decided it’s time to really learn how to do this stuff with an expert who will take me by the hand through the scary forest of the blog-world. I’m going back to school!

Christina Hills has opened another world to me using WordPress. I just attended her amazing, content-filled “Website Creation Workshop” studying her detailed webinars. Even though I have my own Blog, I’ve learned a ton since meeting this bright and intelligent guru woman!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Award-winning marketer, world-renowned copywriter and creator of “The She Factor®“, Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero of Red Hot Copy has a reputation as the top female copywriter in the info-marketing industry. She has written award-winning home study courses, conducts a world-famous virtual copywriting training, holds live workshops, and is authoring the original book, The She Factor based on her own She Factor Marketing System. Lorrie is dedicated to teaching the world it is possible to shift from the hype-filled sales to a more modern version…marketing written with authenticity, trust, and rapport. Check out Lorrie’s websites:  http://www.redhotcopy.com and http://www.redhotcopy.com/shefactorbootcamp1.html and http://www.redhotblogging.com.

Eleanor Marks Prior writes about Fan Pages on Facebook:

Fan Pages on Facebook can be very beneficial to any website or company. According to “Mashable.com”, post’s growth figures of roughly 20% monthly, totalling a 200% in size annually. This would mean that this is a good place to build good networks, making a name and endorsing your services and products.  And the process is easy, simple and free. In fact,

you can really become a fan of anything, whether it’s for someone famous  or you may become a fan to something that you find interesting. Whenever you update fan pages, all of your fans see what’s new and they may comment, or they may engage in conversations, ask questions, and visit your website all at one central place. These features give any businesses a great advantage, it may be a small or a big time company, products or websites.

Advantages of Fan Page on Facebook?

• Search engines can index the page.
• Pages are public, you can get some nice facebook.com link credit for free.
• You can send “updates” to fans whenever you want. This is one of the greatest features It’s a nice way of building a database of interested users. You may send messages about new products, updated website, etc.
• You control the page especially from those competitors who would like to use your page. You are able to send messages, edit or remove sections, and control the information to an extent. You can also easily invite your target audience to your page. Facebook makes  it easier to distinguish who exactly is in your target demographic.
• When someone joins your Fan page, It publishes on their News feed “Jane Doe became a fan of”. This gives you a chance to connect to more people from other networks.
• With your fan page, You establish a strong fan base during these initial stages of Facebooks growth and more importantly the development stages of Facebooks attempt to monetize their efforts, will provide you with a solid standpoint to operate from in the years to come.
• This lets you see exactly where your fans are coming from, their age, there language and so on. You can monitor the growth of your site and see exactly how many page hits your page is getting It’s safe to be said this is still really in the beta stages of production and in the nearby future there will be many more options that will help your develop your marketing strategies and advertising campaigns.

Your Facebook fan page is an extension of your brand and must reflect that. Remember that people are spending more and more of their time online today. Many businesses create their fan pages with great branding and content; but if you do not make any effort to connect and engage the fans, this may be gone to waste. It is really important that you give importance.

All of these will work well if you have a main goal or purpose to your fan page that keeps you focused. It will be easier to decide what to include as content on your fan page if you have set goals in place.

Want a Facebook fanpage now. Can’t do it? No time? Not getting the results from the venture that you wanted? Contact me for evident fan page success.