So, I have been silent for more than a half year here. I’ve been very busy. We have moved to a new office, which is much, much better and bigger. I helped with organizing the move. Also our team has started some new projects; new people have joined our team.
Nonetheless, during this time, I did start a Facebook page for our website, appPicker.com. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years, I think you already know what Facebook is! According to 2011 statistics, there are more than 750 million active users in Facebook and more than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.). Those are amazing numbers and they make it clear why Facebook is the world’s largest and most popular social network.
What do I think is important to know or to do for the newbie who wants to build a community of customers, users and prospects who are interested in his/her products and services and what he or she have to say about them?
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Define your target audience (gender, age, location, education, occupation, interests).
There are big marketing departments in many companies. Marketers do surveys and research for finding and understanding their customers.
What have I done? I have studied data taken from our Google Analytics, Facebook analytics, and I have conducted some research in Google.com
Google Analytics . Most of our visitors are from America and Canada – 75%, United Kingdom – 5% and 20% are from other countries.
Using Facebook , I was able to see how many users are in my target location. For instance in America, there are 168,642,820 Facebook users in America. Moreover I can find out, for instance, how many male users there are between the ages of 25–35, who are located in NYC: 1,024,200. This information can be found in Facebook, during the first steps of creating an ad, which you can start without completing and paying for.
However, the biggest advantage for me is that I can see how many users from those 1,024,200 are using iOS
So, using, this Facebook feature I can estimate the potential size of our audience and the percentage of male to female, and their ages and interests.
In Google.com I found a recent survey about smartphone users. I found data about gender, age, income, and education level of iPhone users.
As appPicker.com is an iOS app reviews and news site, it is beneficial for me to understand who uses apps more (e.g. men or women), what the average age is of those who use apps, and so on.
- Recognize your customers’ (hereinafter referred to as the “fans”) problems and needs. Do some research of how currently they use a product or service. Then post content that can help to solve your fans’ problems, give them advice, create some tips and make them interested in learning.
It’s characteristic for every iDevice user to want to be up on the trends. Such users want to know what is new, where and what bugs exist and how and when they will be resolved. For example, recently, the introduction of iOS 6, while long anticipated, also brought with it many problems, resulting in a lot of user backlash. Emotive topics such as this one make good topics for inviting discussion and debate.
- Post things that your fans are interested in that will get the conversation started. Make them guess, ask relevant questions.
I created a calendar of Apple historical dates, to inform our users about interesting events. I note and remember worldwide events, holidays, anniversaries, etc.
- Be positive. Make fans laugh and smile! Facebook is a resource where people want to be entertained. Updates with positive emotions get more “Likes” and funny pictures, comics are shared more.
- Create voting polls and competitions. Use Facebook to interact with your fans.
- Create longer status updates: don’t post only links or pictures. More detail equals more “Likes”.
- Don’t post too much about your product because it’s very boring. Sometimes your best post is what you don’t post!
- Check your Facebook statistics regularly to gain a greater insight into what your fans like and respond to most.
- Be nice to your fans, reply to their questions and comments, and invite them for more comments.
- More ‘Likes’ doesn’t mean you will get more customers! Create posts which aim to bring people back to your website where they may then connect with your content.
- Invite your fans into your other communities where conversations are taking place about you. You use your website as the hub to move the conversations around and between communities.
Does anybody have some other important tips to share with me?
I would like to know them and to implement for improving appPicker’s Facebook page.
