Important questions answered about Facebook Marketing

Facebook is hot. There’s no question that Facbeook has a large audience. But what does this mean for marketers and business owners?

Here are three recent Facebook-related studies that answer these very questions by examining how much time Facebook users invest in the platform.

#1: One-Third of Online Time Spent on Facebook Among U.S. Users
According to recent findings by market researcher Morpace, U.S. Facebook users are on the site for 1 of every 3 minutes of time spent online.  Users 18 to 34 years old spend the most time on the site per week (8.5 hours out of 22.4 spent online). Users 55 and older spend an average of 4.6 hours per week on Facebook.

The study also explored Facebook activity by ethnicity. According to the results, Asians were the heaviest users of Facebook.  As a group, they devoted the most of their Internet time per week to Facebook (39.6%).  African Americans were the second heaviest users at 35.1%.  Hispanics spent the least amount of time on Facebook (31.7%).


#2: Facebook Ads Most Effective On User Profile Pages
Facebook users spend more time looking at ads on their own Facebook profiles than they do on news feed pages (their homepages), found a new report by Mulley Communications.  Specifically, the study found that 71% of users looked at advertisements on their profile pages, while only 31% of users looked at advertisements on the news feed page.

In addition, 53% of users pay attention to page updates in their news feed wall, which may explain why they mostly ignore ads on their pages.

Here’s a short video to show the heat map of the news feed from the study.  Notice how there’s little activity in the right-hand side of the wall.

#3: Online Merchants Loving Facebook ‘Likes’
There’s been a lot of discussion about retailers extending the power of Facebook to their sites. Website conversion company SeeWhy found that 35% of ecommerce online marketers have implemented Facebook’s “Like” plugin, while 33% plan to do so in the near future.

The second most popular Facebook social plugin was the login application, as 18% reported they had implemented it and 15% said they plan to do so in the future. The login plugin allows consumers to skip the registration step and login directly from the merchant’s site.  This allows conversion to be simple and quick, which is a huge advantage for the merchant.

How to use your web analytics data for marketing purposes?

Strategic marketers are continually collecting data and web analytics on their website, but what should they do with all this information? 

As a marketer, data gathered online can be a valuable tool for improving strategies and adjusting budgets. In the message below I will describe web analytics and how it can work to become a better marketeer. 

1)  Measure offline data – All offline marketing campaigns should be tracked and measured as well as online campaigns. Having clear tracking for offline marketing like tradeshows is an important way to compare the results of your entire marketing strategy.

2) Measure traffic sources. Find out how your visitors are finding you.  Finding out which sources are driving the most traffic to the website will allow you to determine how well the search engines index the content on your website. 

3)  Measure conversion rates. Getting visitors to the website is the first step, getting them to convert into a lead or business is the next. Offering compelling content and clear calls-to-action will help to convert more of this traffic into leads for the business. Determine which keywords are giving you the best top, middle, and bottom of the funnel leads.

4) Ensure the data is clear. Don’t focus on one metric.  For example you notice an increase in traffic one week, what was the cause of this increase?  First you notice there was a large increase of traffic from the blog, then after drilling down further you find that it was a specific article. This shows you that this specific content is compelling to your audience, and it would be a great idea to create more content on this topic.  

5) Close the loop – Most marketers are concerned about their marketing ROI, knowing where to devote more time, energy, and resources are important.  Closed loop marketing or finding out which campaigns are driving the most traffic, leads, and most importantly customers.