New Facebook Coupon Feature Helps Local Businesses Determine Social ROI

Are you aware that, according to research from ExactTarget, 58% of Facebook users expect to receive discounts or promotions when they 'like' a business page? Well yesterday, Facebook started making it a lot easier for marketers to give the people what they want. And now brick-and-mortar local businesses have another smart reason to use Facebook. Coupons!

Yesterday, Facebook rolled out its new Offers product to all local business pages in the U.S. -- a feature that allows marketers to create coupons to share on their timeline. For free! Page fans can then share the offers with their friends, which can be redeemed at the local business' brick and mortar location. Previously available for a select group of brand page testers, TechCrunch reports that the tool is now accessible for all US local businesses on Facebook.

While the feature is only available in the U.S. for now, Facebook plans to roll it out to other countries in the future.

How to Create a Facebook 'Offer'

Before everyone gets excited, it's important to note that only business pages that are categorized as a 'local business' will have access to the new feature. In other words, in your page's settings, under 'Basic Information,' your page category needs to be set to 'Local Businesses & Places,' and an appropriate sub-category needs to be specified. This means that unless you're a local business, you won't have access to the new feature.

If your business is, in fact, a local one, then you'll find the new functionality right within the normal composer tool on your page's timeline. The first time you click to create an offer, a tour of the new functionality will launch.

And this is what the Offer editor will look like:

Anatomy of a Facebook Offer

1. A Headline: The headline is basically the main offer. Think of it as a call-to-action, and use strong language that clearly explains what the value of the offer is for the user. In the example above, for instance, the headline is "Buy one pair of socks, get another pair free." Facebook recommends providing a discount of at least 20% off or more for the best performance.
2. A Thumbnail: You can also upload an image with your offer, which is displayed with the offer text as a 90 x 90 pixel thumbnail. For best results, upload a square image that won't get cropped when Facebook resizes it to fit the thumbnail. Facebook also recommends using an image that represents the product/service you're promoting -- or people using that product/service -- rather than your company logo.
3. A Redemption Limit: You can choose to limit the number of coupons that can be redeemed by choosing a number from the dropdown, or you can make it 'Unlimited.'
4. An Expiration Date: You can also specify the day on which the offer will expire. Facebook recommends giving people at least a few days to find and claim the offer. This also allows you to leverage word-of-mouth promotion, since you'll be giving fans enough time to share the offer among their friends, and for those friends to claim and redeem it.
5. Terms & Conditions: This is where you can include more details about the offer. Facebook recommends making terms and conditions as simple as possible.

You can also preview and make changes to the offer before publishing it to your timeline. Facebook also recommends marketers alert their staff about the offer they're promoting and train them on how to handle redemptions. This way, there are no misunderstandings or confusion during the customers' coupon redemption process.

The User Experience

When you publish a Facebook Offer to your page's timeline, visitors of your page will be able to click "Get Offer" on the offer to redeem it.

Facebook will then send an email to the address associated with that user's account, which will contain information about the offer they've claimed. Users can then either print the email or show the email on their mobile device to staff at the brick-and-mortar business in order to redeem it.

Better Insight Into Facebook Marketing ROI for Local Business Marketers

The benefit of Facebook's new feature for marketers is pretty obvious. Now local businesses will easily be able to connect their Facebook presence with its return on investment, since Facebook offers will allow them to directly attribute certain sales with specific Facebook campaigns. This means local business marketers will be able to more clearly understand the value of a Facebook fan and, thus, the ROI of their Facebook marketing.

To get the most out of offers, marketers should leverage other Facebook tools such as pinning the offer to the top of their timeline to promote them organically, and consider Facebook advertising efforts such as Sponsored Stories to attract more attention to their offers.

What do you think of Facebook Offers? Will your local business take advantage of it?





























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New Gmail Image Feature Makes Email Marketing More Social

Last week, Gmail introduced a new feature allowing users to share inline images from emails with their Google+ networks. Since the 2011 announcement of the integration between Google+ and Gmail, Google has now taken yet another step toward integrating email and real-time social networking. And this topic should concern you, my fellow marketer.

Email to Catch up With Social; Google to Catch up With Facebook 

In early 2012, it was announced that Gmail had 350 million active users. While this is an impressive number, Gmail still has a lot of catching up to do to reach Facebook’s 800 million users. In fact, not only is Gmail behind Facebook on overall user adoption, but it also seems to be behind in terms of engagement. A 2010 Nielsen study shows email as the third online channel on which Americans spend most of their time, ranking behind social networks/blogs and games.

In attempt to reverse these numbers and become a leader in both user adoption and engagement, Google is intently working on making its email platform more social. In other words, all focus seems to be placed on integration between Gmail and Google+.

Taking Email Sharing to the Next Level

With the rollout of Google+, we instantly spotted some user interface elements that allowed for email messages to be spread outside the inbox. The upper right-hand corner of your Gmail account allows you to share a piece of content straight from your email inbox.

Last week, Gmail made it even easier to share email content with an outside network. If you have rich formatting enabled and receive an email with an inline image in it, you can hover around the visual and click on the “Share” link.

Then, by simply clicking on that green "Share" button, you will be prompted to enter a custom message and target your Google+ circles (as well as email connections who are still not on Google+). Don't forget to add a link to your message so that people can visit your website and learn more about your company or offer; sharing links in social media updates is the backbone of social media lead generation!

When you visit your Google+ profile, you will see that the image was shared through "Google Mail." Now your connections can +1 and comment on the post:

 You, Too, Should Integrate Email & Social Media

So what does this all mean for businesses? The most important marketing lesson here is that you need to stop putting email and social media in silos. These channels are being increasingly connected and you need to make your email content shareable. For instance:

Ensure that you have social media sharing links within your emails.Add social media following links to your email signatures.Start incorporating behavior-based communication that spans across email and social media, and is mobile-friendly.

Use Compelling Visual Content

Gmail's new feature makes a direct statement about the importance of visual content. Visual storytelling has already penetrated many marketing efforts. With the evolution of Facebook and the emergence of Pinterest, we see the web move steadily in a photo-sharing direction. Online users enjoy making discoveries by flipping through images, so make sure your email messages contain compelling visual content that can be easily shared with the recipient's friends and coworkers. In fact, start watching and learning from new trends and memes on social media sites. That will surely help you stay ahead of the competition and up-to-date with the lastest developments in email marketing technologies.

Did you notice the new inline image sharing Gmail feature? What do you think about it?

















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Facebook to Introduce ‘Lifesaving’ Feature Tuesday

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to appear on ABC’s Good Morning America on Tuesday to introduce a feature that “could save lives.”

The program teased the segment by noting that Zuckerberg “doesn’t do much TV” and then asked, “So why is he inviting [GMA news anchor] Robin Roberts to Facebook’s headquarters? What does he want to share that could save lives?”

Facebook reps could not be reached for comment on the announcement. The social networking giant has introduced tools of late that could be described along the same lines. In December, Facebook launched a program called “Lifeline” that let friends alert the company when their friends express suicidal thoughts. In that case, Facebook sends an email to the comment’s author directing them to a telephone hotline or a link they can click to start a confidential chat.

The company also introduced a suite of tools last March aimed a cracking down on cyberbullying.

In addition to Zuckerberg’s appearance, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is also scheduled to appear on GMA for an interview with Diane Sawyer to “discuss the personal stories that led to this new initiative and its goals,” according to ABC.

What do you think Facebook is going to introduce? Let us know in the comments.












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