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Do the People who “Like” You Actually “Like” You?

July 1, 2010

So you just drafted a lovely Facebook status, attached a snazzy photo and shared it with all of those awesome people who “like” your page; but did you know that some of those people will never see your hard (crafty) work because they are hiding from you?

Yep, it’s true. And you can find out exactly how many by following these steps:

  1. Go to your Insights page and look at the bottom-left graph.
  2. Select Total Fans/Unsubscribed Fans
  3. Check the yellow “Hidden from Newsfeed” box.

Now that you have this information, what percentage of your brand’s fans are hiding from you? In our experience, an average of 3-8% don’t see your content in their News Feed. This percentage is something to keep your eye on.

If your percentage is higher than 10%, that could be a sign to rethink your Facebook strategy and tonality.  Here are some tips to consider when posting on Facebook, back to the basics:

Content: The key is delivering VALUE when, where and how your fans want to receive it. Share interesting, entertaining, informative and relevant content. It’s best to include a visual such as an image, video or thumbnail when posting. Keep it fresh and avoid re-posting the same content. Sound basic? It is. Yet we’ve all been victims of the paragraph-style text only updates that take up four inches in our feed. The hide button is just too tempting when you only have a hot second to check your Facebook feed at work. The essay updates can be a buzz kill.

Frequency: When people “like” your page they are subscribing to get updates from you on a semi-regular basis. This is a privilege and shouldn’t be abused by bombarding fans with updates. You don’t want your brand to seem desperate like it’s trying to hard or has too much time on its hands. (You know what we’re talking about here. We all have family members who fall into this category.) To most, this Facebook behavior results in an automatic “hide” button or even a (gasp) “unlike”. Do you know how many updates you post a week? Do you know how many fans you gain a week? Is there a correlation? Yes, it’s very likely. Pun intended.

Engage: Your fans love to hear about what is going on with you but also ask them what is going on with them. And then, LISTEN to the answer. Ask questions, respond to questions, and overall just be social with your “likes”.  They’ll, uh, like it. Many brands don’t respond to comments. So, the expectation is that. It’s an easy way to wow your fans and make them “like” you more. (Then they’ll tell their friends to “like” you.)

Make sure to monitor the “total fans” to “hide” ratio.  And the “unsubscribes” (or “unlikes”) to “hides” ratio. The early adopters are likely to be your loyalists and therefore you should experience less “hiders” in the beginning.

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The Power of Listening

June 28, 2010

Something very common happened recently on U.S. Airways Flight #544 from Vancouver to Phoenix. But what happened afterwards is something truly noteworthy. I left my very beloved iPad at seat 15A. Besides the iPad being a gadget many people would love to get their hands on, mine also contained sensitive information. That is when I went from a customer to a customer that needed service.

In a state of panic and with a tinge of hope, I sent this tweet:

Picture 31

Reaching out to US Airways on Twitter might, just might, get me my iPad back. Afterall, as a loyal Southwest Airlines customer and follower, I’ve seen customer service in action via Twitter. In fact, @SouthwestAir was actively assisting their customers throughout the day on that Sunday, while @USAirways had not sent a tweet in four days and hadn’t responded to a customer-service oriented tweet in five days.

What happened next was less expected. Hundreds of people started responding to my virtual distress signal. People were sending me phone numbers to US Airways and to airports customer service departments and giving me advice on how to get it back. Kind friends from Dallas (where the plane was headed next) volunteered to drive to the airport to retrieve my iPad. While dozens of others reached out to the @USAirways account on my behalf.

In the middle of this outpouring of generosity, came one tweet-in-shining armor under the handle: @This_JustIn_. And this Justin saved the day. A couple phone calls on my behalf and the news came in: my iPad would be riding with the captain back home to PHX where we would be happily (and gratefully) reunited.

There are many lessons to take from this story. For one, don’t leave your unlocked iPad on a plane. (It’s now password protected, by the way.) But one of the most valuable is the power of humans helping humans. There are huge opportunities (thanks to powerful communication tools such as Twitter and Facebook) for ‘titans of industry’ such as US Airways to humanize their brand. Imagine if @USAirways was listening-around-the-clock (since they do fly-around-the-clock) instead of only “listening during regular business hours” (as their bio line says). They not only had the opportunity to give amazing customer service but to do it in front of hundreds of people who were actively listening. People were literally rooting for them to succeed!

And the kicker? It was such an easy win for @USAirways. Why? For one, they had a Captain flying the plane who cared enough about his passengers to temporarily take custody of my iPad and return it to me personally at the Phoenix airport.

So where did they go wrong? They weren’t listening. It is no longer up to the brand where or how they want their customers to communicate.  Imagine if US Airways decided they didn’t want to use the phone as a communication device and stopped answering the phone for five days.


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Hide & Tweet: Bridging the Virtual and Physical Worlds

June 17, 2010

So what’s this ‘Hide and Tweet’ thing we’re always talking about? Hide and tweet is more than just three words, but a concept we developed awhile back in effort to bridge the virtual world with the physical world. That’s when the magic happens. Watch the video as we show you how it plays out. Sometimes 20 people show up in less than five minutes. Other times, 2,000 people show up within an hour. Either way, we tell the story virtually so everyone can experience the act and see how attainable prizes are … that is, only if they follow carefully. Whether we’re trying to drive foot traffic to a marketing partner’s store, increase awareness about an event or promote a new product, the Hide and Tweet concept always resonates with fans and pushes them up the loyalty ladder.

The video above shares one day full of Hide and Tweet stunts from start to finish. This is a glimpse into the Summer social media campaign we’ve developed for the UFC called “Hunt4UFC.” The campaign was a result of us listening to fans. They’re constantly asking us to bring our Twitter games to their city, so we did. We’re hitting up 13 markets in the United States and Canada this Summer.

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