Connect Facebook supporters to your email list

This is the first of a two-part series. Also see:
• How to successfully harness your email list for your cause

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, businesses, Web publishers, Facebook administrators, marketers.

For many nonprofits, email is the bridge that Facebook fans frequently walk across on their way to becoming a donor, simply because it’s more private and less distracting than Facebook.

This is why it’s critical to have a smart email marketing strategy in addition to a smart Facebook strategy.

Use your Facebook Page to build your nonprofit’s email list

No one ever joined an email list just to join an email list (“How many more email lists can I join today?! I love filling out those cute little forms! Oh, look – here’s another one!”).

You have to do a lot of things well before someone will give you permission to invade their in-box.

Here’s what you need to do to create a healthy email acquisition strategy on Facebook:

Make the value exchange obvious

1People will only join your email list when they feel that the value of joining outweighs the pain.

Before you stick an opt-in form on your Facebook page, be clear about the value exchange. You can do this in a few ways:

• Offer an ebook (resource guides, healthy recipes, how tos). I’ve acquired almost 500 emails from Facebook with this eBook.
• Give them regular tips on staying healthy like the American Diabetes Association does.
• Ask people to take a pledge, like The Human Society of The United States does.
• If your organization does advocacy, ask people to sign a petition like Care2 does.
• Run a giveaway contest with a sponsor.

Build the bridge — put an opt-in form on your Facebook page

2If you’re using a service like Aweber or Mailchimp, create a web form and add it to a custom tab (how to).

The Case Foundation uses the MailChimp Facebook app to add a simple but effective opt-in form to their page (as shown above).

Important: Make sure you create a new email list in your email marketing software so that you can email these new subscribers the right messages at the right time, also known as segmentation.

Point the way — design for action, not awards

3Don’t get OCD about creating a beautiful tab. Design for people to take action, not to get awards. A few ideas:

• Use a large font size – 16 points or more. It’s easier to see – and trust.
• Use as few words as possible. In fact, I know you can cut your copy by half.
• Focus your copy exclusively on the benefit of joining your list, like on this tab.
• Use a highlight color as the background color for the fields,like I do here.
• Use arrows and white space to direct attention, like The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews does (as shown above).
• Include a headline that clearly states the value of joining your list.

Remove all distractions

4Forget about your Twitter feed, latest Pin, or your YouTube video. These things will only hinder your acquisition goals.

Only ask for name and email

5Remember, people use Facebook to connect with friends, not causes. Respect that by only asking for the essentials (first name and email).

You can always ask for street address and other items later on.

Make it mobile

6Custom tabs are not viewable on mobile devices, unless you create tabs with a tool like Shortstack.

Shortstack tabs include mobile-friendly URLs (shown above), which can be posted in updates or used in ads to render a mobile version of your tab.

Promote your list with updates and ads

7People don’t visit your custom tab just because you built it. You have to post updates and use Facebook ads to promote it!

In the description of photos, encourage fans to subscribe to your email list to get the inside story. Or share a photo and ask people to take a pledge, like The Human Society of the United States does.

Measure, measure, measure

8The only way you’ll ever learn what approach is working or not is to measure. One way to measure is to create a unique form specifically for your Facebook custom tab.

This will allow you to see how it performs compared to other places where you’re collecting emails (in the example above, I learned that Facebook converts better than my blog).

How have you acquired emails on Facebook?

The post How to use your Facebook page to build your nonprofit’s email list appeared first on Socialbrite.

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, businesses, educators, anyone with a Facebook page.

Network for Good hosted a free webinar the other day where I presented 27 Ways to Increase Engagement on Your Facebook Page.

According to a recent survey by NTEN, 89 percent of nonprofits today use Facebook to expand awareness around their cause and to grow their fan base. One challenge that many nonprofits face is keeping fans interested and engaged after they like their page. (Remember, most people who Like your page never see it again — unless it turns up in their news feed.)

Above are the slides from the webinar. Some of the things you’ll learn:

• The three most important pillars of your content strategy
• Three shocking facts about every Facebook Page
• The best times during the day to post content
• Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm defined and why you should care
• What types of content get more exposure in news feeds
• How to post links in a page story
• How to use photos to spark engagement
• How to use questions to spark conversations
• How to use closed and open questions to spark conversations
• And lots more

If you want to hear the 60-minute recording, download it here. You can check out the SlideShare presentation above or download it as a PDF.

Related

• 19 ways to engage your nonprofit’s Facebook fans (Socialbrite)

The post 27 ways to increase engagement on your Facebook page appeared first on Socialbrite.

If you want to increase pages views and site engagement, it’s critical that you create a more social experience when people visit your website.

For example, when people view an article from your blog, they can see which of their friends have already read that article. They also can share content on your site with their Facebook friends.

Gigya published data showing that Web users spend 50 percent more time on websites that use Facebook social plug-ins. They also view twice as many pages.

Use social plug-ins to increase engagement

As you can see in the bar graph above, users spend most of their time commenting, which, according to Giya, “allows them to share opinions on content and interact with other users – including those from their social graph.”

This makes sense when you remember that people are busier today than ever before, but still want to converse with their friends on topics they care about.

Increase page views with social plug-ins

They also found that page views more than doubled for sites that use social plug-ins. Again, commenting and sharing were the two biggest activities.

What does all this mean for your website?

The more pages people view on your site, the more chances you have to convert them into an email subscriber or donor.

View your website as a fishing net. Web visitors either keep swimming on by your site or get caught in your net — subscribe to your email newsletter, etc. Social plug-ins encourage these fish to swim around a bit more, giving you more chances at catching them!

Which Facebook social plug-ins should you use?

Putting your organization’s goals aside for a moment, and viewing the data above, it’s safe to say that you should at least be implementing Facebook’s Like Button and Comments plug-in. For instance:

• Like Button: When a user clicks the Like button, a news story publishes to his or her News Feed, and this story includes a link back to the content on your site. If your site offers a lot of content that users can like individually (such as in a blog), you’ll invariably increase referral traffic from Facebook to your site.
• Comments: This plug-in allows you to add a comment box to your website content so that Facebook users can enter their comments, which can automatically be published to their Facebook News Feed. These republished comments also include a link back to the comments on your site.

Facebook has excellent tutorials on installing these plug-ins, and if you use WordPress, all you need is to install a few plug-ins. The plugins I use are Facebook Like and Send and Disqus for comments (users can log in with Twitter or Google in addition to Facebook).

Have you installed Facebook social plugins on your site?

The post Use Facebook to increase engagement on your site appeared first on Socialbrite.

5 tips to help you take advantage of Facebook’s twin feeds

Target audience: Nonprofits, NGOs, cause organizations, social enterprises, brands, social media managers, Web publishers, individuals.

Facebook’s enhanced News Feed and Ticker has changed the engagement game for Facebook Page admins. And those who know the rules of the game will be able to get more results simply by shifting strategy.

Facebook now has two News Feeds

Facebook users now have two News Feeds in one — the Ticker and the main News Feed (see image above).

The main News Feed is similar to what we’ve been used to, but “Top Stories” and “Recent” stories are more prevalent. The “Ticker” on the right is a Twitter-like feed of stories published by a user’s Facebook friends. These News Feeds present content in very different ways:

• The Main News Feed – This includes stories by friends and Pages you’ve liked. “Recent” is simply posts in reverse chronological order. What appears in “Top Stories” is entirely determined by Edgerank.

• The Ticker – This includes only stories by friends. Your Page only gets exposure if a user is “Talking About” your Page.

How the two News Feeds impact Facebook Pages

According to EdgeRank Checker, soon after Facebook tweaked the News Feed, impressions (the number of times a story is displayed throughout Facebook) were down 25%, but likes and comments were up by 9% and 21% respectively.

This makes sense because when a user engages with your Facebook Page, the Ticker pushes it to all of their friends. Likes and comments can also increase if users see your Page story in their main News Feed.

How to shift your strategy

There are at least five ways you can tweak your current Facebook Page strategy to take advantage of the new News Feed:

1. Increase your post frequency. To make up for the overall decrease in impressions, post more frequently. Make sure you use Insights to determine how many posts per day work best for your Page.
2. Create even more engaging content. Posts that have a high EdgeRank will now remain in the News Feed longer.

1. Get fans to stay connected. Deepen and broaden your relationships with fans so that they share your Page content consistently. You can do this by rewarding fans or using a content calendar.
2. Push engagement with other channels. Use your email list or Twitter to drive engagement on specific posts.
3. Get more airtime with Facebook Sponsored Story ads. You can create an ad featuring one of your Page stories to get you even more attention near the News Feed (ads are displayed right below the ticker).

How have you changed your Facebook Page strategy?

The post What Facebook’s hybrid News Feed means for engagement appeared first on Socialbrite.