Facebook is not a billboard – Part 3 of 3

by Bast Durbin | Mar 1, 2019 | Thoughts

You need to give fans and followers things of value (your products and services included) and make them want to come back for more. So how do you do this? Here are few simple steps to avoid using Facebook like a billboard, but still bring in potential clients or customers: 1) Ask questions.  Fans love giving input (negative and positive).  Types of posts that ask them what like, want to share, etc, serve a few purposes: – it does some market research for you. – it helps increase your views and engagement because more people are wanting to answer.  They want to be heard.  The more people who comment, the more Facebook algorithm with show these to your current fans – and their friends. – builds ownership.  Fans feel like you are listening, so they come back for more. 2) Do real time posting.  Don’t always just schedule a post and set it and forget it.  You have to show up online. Be there and engage. It doesn’t have to be constant – but it should be a regular occurrence. Ask about them – ask what they’re doing, and then respond back right away.  This again builds your engagement numbers, and makes Facebook’s algorithm believe that you are relevant. 3) Ask people to share your call to action type posts. Sometimes people don’t even realize that you want them to spread the word.  If you ask, many will do it. 4) Mix up your types of posts when you do need to post a sales type item.  Different types of posts are served to different people.  If you use a direct link in one post, and a photo with a link in the comments in another, you’ll reach different fans because Facebook shows your fans what they interact on most.  You can spread these out over a couple of days to reach the maximum number of fans organically. Using Facebook to drive traffic and sell products and services to potential customers can seem overwhelming at times, as it seems that less and less people are being reached by your page organically. With a good strategy and overall plan to increase engagement over the long term, however, it can become easier to reach more of the people who want to purchase from you.  Give them quality content and avoid acting like Facebook is a billboard, and your page will drive sales incredibly well.

Facebook is not a billboard – Part 2 of 3

by Bast Durbin | Feb 26, 2019 | Thoughts

Your business’s purpose is obviously to sell product.  The purpose of your overall social media plan is to drive traffic to your website, or your newsletter, or wherever you would like your potential customers to land to purchase product.   The social media plan per post, however, is not to drive traffic to your website, the plan per post is to drive engagement numbers up, so that Facebook’s algorithms know that what you’re posting is relevant to your fan base.  As Facebook gages what is relevant to your fans, they will increase views on that post, and in future posts. This, in turn, increases the number of posts that your fans see that are driving them to your website (or newsletter, etc). Facebook page’s reach per post is usually around 1% of your fan base organically.  You can increase that number being reached exponentially if you purposefully create interaction and engagement on a post. Asking relevant questions, posting fan photos, etc, are strategies that can be utilized to increase that engagement. An important point: the more engaging posts are on a page, the more Facebook will serve future posts to your current fan base. So, if you have a sale coming up, making very engaging posts prior to announcing that sale and posting links to purchase (or similar type posts), will actually increase the number of fans who see those sales type posts.  Facebook’s algorithms actually limit the number of your fans that see any posts that are sales in nature to less than 1% organically.  That can be mitigated by having lots of interaction on the page prior to announcing anything or posting links to purchase products.  Shooting for approximately 80% engaging content and posts, 20% sales type, call to action content and posts is a good rule of thumb in general strategy.  If you are trying to get lots of fan interaction prior to new product announcement or other big announcement, at least 90% engaging and relevant content in the week or two prior is important. It is often extremely difficult to gain back engagement numbers quickly, so if Facebook decides your information is not applicable or interesting enough to give to your target market in their Facebook feed, they will stop serving posts to your fans, less people will interact with your page, and then even less of your posts will reach your current fans and followers. That’s definitely the opposite of what you want. How do you give fans and followers things of value (your products and services included) and make them want to come back for more? We’ll be talking about this next week in part 3.

Buying Radio—Part 1 of 5 (How To, When To, and What’s Important!)

by Bast Durbin | Oct 25, 2018 | Thoughts

Of the many media vehicles that I buy, radio has variables that need to be considered before I sign the insertion order my rep sends me. There are more ways to listen to your favorite genre of tunes than ever before. For me, depending on my mood, I’ll usually roll with 80s tunes if I am washing my truck, country if I’m on the patio, or conservative talk radio if I’m feeling all political.

But when you buy radio, don’t get caught in the trap that just because you are a hunter, it means that you are the entire demographic of your target. I may be a conservative but there are plenty of union boys out there who vote the other party but buy a lot of guns, ammo, and gear.

The point is buy your radio with an open heart, and not a narrow mind. The blog marks the first of a series of radio-buying tips!

Buying Radio—Part 2 of 5 (Radio buying Tips—Several Independent Stations or a Group?)

by Bast Durbin | Oct 24, 2018 | Thoughts

If you are contemplating a radio buy one of the first things to consider is whether or not you are looking to brand a manufacturer, cause, support a dealer or announce an event. If I have a client that is simply looking to hit as many people as possible to brand their product or push their cause—I like looking at the given state I’m buying in and see if there is a statewide news or “radio network.” They are easy to find, and I think every state has a group that gets airtime on a lot of radio stations. Just Google “Statewide Radio Network” and add the state you’re looking at and something will pop up in the first four or five hits. Take Minnesota, for instance. They have the Minnesota News Network that has short segments of air time on about 80 different stations in the state. A person can buy a 30 or 60 second spot that hits all the stations for about $500 a full-run. So, for $500, you deliver a 30-second message to all the 80 stations from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. A person can also buy groups within the network that might work better for their client. For instance, I just bought a group within the statewide network for stations that were within 20 miles of a navigable water way for a pontoon boat company that wanted to reach people living on lakes or close to lakes. This buy was good because it worked for the client and it saved me the time of having to call every radio station in the state that was close to a lake or river. These buys save clients a ton of money instead of buying each individual station because they buy in bulk. A word of caution: you don’t have the ability to pick the exact time you want a spot to air or have any real opportunity at getting interviews from the local disk jockey about your product or event. A person also can save money and time by buying from the local group of stations owned by one parent company. Some examples in your area might be iHeartRadio (formerly Clear Channel), or Cumulas, or others. Maybe a host of a radio program has 20 different stations carrying his or her program? These situations mean that a person can buy groups of stations that often times have demographics that are favorable for the client you are buying for. For instance, in Wisconsin, Dan Small has several affiliates that carry his hunting and fishing show. In Michigan, maybe it’s Mike Avery. These guys give me the ability to make one buy that hits several stations in one shot, at a cheaper rate, to a market I know doesn’t have a lot of wasted listeners. I can’t make that same claim when buying a sports station, that only has 60 percent of their listeners being hunters. Another advantage of buying with a larger group is that they often times have their act together in terms of having the ratings, from Tapscan or another group, that has demographics that help explain the type of listener, age, household income, and other information that is pertaining to my buy. Not every station subscribes to this service. Larger groups also are able to offer discounts for running on several of their stations. One Clear Channel group I buy with often in Wisconsin has the number one Classic Rock station, the number one Country Station, the number one talk radio station, and the number one sports-talk station—that is a no brainer buy. It saves the client money and me, time. Don’t get me wrong—there are times where buying smaller independent stations makes sense. Sometimes there is no clear-cut group of stations that is the market bully. In this case, take the time to call on several stations and micro-manage the buy to exactly fit your needs. These smaller stations also are hungry, so they may offer more added value in extra spots, remotes, or giveaways to get your business. The clear market winners know they are the big dogs in town and are less willing to work for your dollar (sometimes) so occasionally it actually makes more sense to buy with the number two station in the market, vs. the number one, because the smaller audience station will give you twice the number of spots than the larger station and frequency is key with all types of advertising.