Last night I participated in a free advanced Facebook marketing webinar hosted by Lewis Howes (@lewishowes) and Sean Malarkey (@seanmalarkey), two of the top names in Social Media right now. The speaker was Robert Grant (@robertgrant) who is a successful internet and social media marketer partnered with Ian David Chapman (@iandavidchapman), also a successful social media marketer and self-proclaimed Facebook Maven. At the beginning of the talk, Robert noted that he would be promoting his product at the end of the webinar. I guess that is often the point of a free webinar, to pull people in with great content and hosts and sell a great product. There was a good bit of information to take away and apply without having to purchase the product. I would like to share some of my notes with you below, but first a few comments on my own experience.
I must say, I’ve not always been fond of sales in general though I’m learning to appreciate it more. I guess you could say I’m more quality service-oriented than sales-oriented. Back in 1999, I was quite possibly the world’s least aggressive salesperson. I worked full time as a sales associate at Emporio Armani in Boston. Pay was based on a low hourly rate and a 3-tiered commission. I’m sure my paycheck was often the lowest, with a few lucky exceptions. I was more interested in greeting the customers, giving them space and offering help if they truly wanted it, at which point I would go out of my way to help them. One afternoon toward the end of the work day a woman and her daughter came in. The other associates were having fun and taking a break, so I told the beautiful, soft-spoken woman and her daughter that I would be happy to help them and just to let me know if they needed assistance. Turns out they needed plenty of assistance resulting in a sale that was nearly the price of my first used car. Boy, were the other two sales associates sorry they took a break that afternoon. Anyhow, I think it was probably my grandfather, a highly revered spiritual practitioner in Boston, who instilled in me these high standards of graciousness and being a truly helpful salesperson as he always sought out and expected others to be highly ethical.
Now that I’ve expressed my innate aversion to sales, here are my notes on the webinar. I hope you will find them helpful for your social media marketing needs!
First, Robert begins, you will want to set up a custom landing page for your brand’s Facebook page. On that landing page you will want to include content that adds massive value to your visitors: sharing cool links or your own content. In general when posting content to your Facebook page, be sure to ask visitors to click the share button if they enjoyed the content to share it with their friends. This is one way to gain more followers.
I’d like to add: No amount of persuasion or marketing will convince those who truly don’t need your product or service to buy it. First, you need to have a good, quality product or service to offer and then you need to figure out how to connect to the people who need it. A beautiful, tasteful presentation of your content will help attract those people when they visit.
Grant goes on to list the four stages to successful Facebook marketing:
- Tools: the right tools for traffic attraction
- Get buyers on your Facebook page or email list
- Structure your network in the right way
- Fan page launch cycle: tips that leave people wanting more
The tools he recommends utilizing are website, blog, Facebook page, like button, like box, messenger, something to sell. He said it’s important to have a like button or like box on your website or blog to draw fans in from there. It is imperative to have relevant content on your blog/website and Facebook page that gives your subscribers what they want. To create your Facebook page, go to http://facebook.com/pages/create.php. Make sure you only use the option for an “official” page not a “community” page as Facebook will eventually take over ownership of community pages when they grow too big.
Naming your page: what words describe solutions people are actually looking for? Do some keyword research and choose an engaging headline. The name should always incorporate a description of what it is you do and/or the solution you intend to provide.
Applications Robert recommends to create your Facebook landing page, rather than learning FBML, are http://northsocial.com/ and http://www.facebooktabsite.com/. (Though you can learn FBML quite easily if you are familiar with basic HTML by utilizing http://developers.facebook.com/ and typing FBML into the search box. And the best part—it’s free!).
He goes on to add that people should leave every interaction they have with you or your brand better off. He believes people only care about what you’re going to give them and they want it now. Give them the right amount of good content that will leave them wanting more so they continue to come back.
You can go to fan page/options/settings to set the default landing tab for your first time visitors. Make sure to set the default tab to something that will entice new followers to look further into your brand.
You can go to http://developers.facebook.com/plugins to access available plugins for your website or blog. Robert recommends the comments plugin, like button and like box to embed on your site/blog.
Another tool he stressed taking full advantage of is Facebook Ads. He explained that you can actually target individuals based on certain keywords that are in their profiles which pertain to the services or products you offer. In addition the average Facebook user has 130 friends and many have a lot more than that. Each person that likes your page is potentially opening up exponentially more connections for you if you target the right individuals.
My interjection: this is all good in theory and quite possible depending on what you are selling and how you deliver your content. But I also like the idea of implementing a less rigorous approach: engaging others directly online, earning credibility through genuine interactions with them and naturally building a network over time.
At this point in the webinar, he ran out of time to finish the presentation and presented his product, Crowd Conversion 3.0. Many of the things he promised to deliver were quite alluring, and of course there was a money back guarantee. He was offering his entire course, a $2,000+ value for “only $497.” And Lewis and Sean offered up several free products of theirs to the first 27 people that signed up. Had I the funds, I would certainly like to give this a try! You can get more information on this yourself here: http://crowdconversion.com.
The Q&A session that followed proved that there were many individuals in attendance able to purchase this product. I think it’s exciting that they’re able to do that and would love to hear if they have success with it! 
This advanced Facebook marketing webinar was an enjoyable and informative experience and I definitely learned many useful tips that I can apply in my work. Currently, for me, finances dictate resourcefulness and reliance on free sources to improve my continually expanding skillset and social media marketing. I have come a long way! Back in June I began reading Mashable articles on how to utilize Twitter for job searching and networking and applying what I learned and following the recommended Tweeps. This opened up a wealth of information from links in Tweets and participation in job search and business-themed Twitter chat parties. Two short weeks later I found myself employed as a virtual assistant with all small virtual assistance company. Success can definitely be found online if you are resourceful, persistent, positive, engaging and Tweet in the right place at the right time!
Special thanks to the the guys listed above for putting on this free Webinar and all the knowledge they shared with all the attendees. All opinions expressed in this personal blog are strictly NOT intended to cause harm. I am not responsible for the comments of individuals and if you have any concerns with any content on this blog, please contact me directly: charissagrandin@gmail.com. Thank you most kindly.