There is no doubt that Facebook will be competing with Google as Zuckerberg said about his graph search it might be a business over the years, which indicate it probably will change, and who know it also might become a web search more than a graph one based on your interests only.

The competition hit the roof after Mark words. specially that Facebook changed the ads structure as announced in 26 Feb http://on.fb.me/1jBIxXH

Even most marketers couldn't help but notice that Facebook ads structure are shifting a lot more like Google Adwords structure, with the different targeting and options provided of course!!

If you didn't get what we mean by now, we are only highlighting the main products both offer:

- Facebook VS Google +.

- Facebook new ad structure VS Adwords.

- Graph search VS Web search.

It’s expected that new approaches will hit the market soon from both companies but what you think their next move will be?

Social-Media

Social media industry has evolved a lot in the recent years, the channels started copying strategies and the tactics used, but it`s not who’s copying from who, it’s more about who is setting the industry trend and quickly adapting to changes

Facebook is a social media platform that is well known for it’s consistent updates, but its next updates will guarantee new challenges for other social media channels, targeting business segment.

Facebook is targeting Linkedin!!

1) According to this blog it looks like Facebook will be launching Targeting option for Ads based on Users job title, which will definitely attract recruitment job marketers, this update is definitely targeting linkedin main audience, who are job seekers 

2) Also we have mentioned before the Facebook business manager tool which allow marketers to manage everything on the same platform, Pages, ad accounts, people you are working with on the page and your large organization employees, seamlessly at the same time.

The Facebook business manager is designed for better optimization by Large organizations, another update targeting Business customers, who are permanent audience on Linkedin

With what we mentioned, Facebook trend will be headed for B2B industry and business targeting soon enough.

What you think Linkedin next move should be?

Social-Media

Being a brand on social media allows you to place your services where all your loyal fans are, and for the long term it allows your brand to build a long relationship with them, but Social media presence is a two sided weapons, and you couldn't be more careful now a days when a content is shared about your brand.

Taco Bell social media crisis is one of the lessons that should be taught about the danger of uncontrolled shared content on social media.

It all started in 2013, when Taco bell Licker photo were posted on social media, we are not so sure how it got online, 

Image source

In no time after the photo was posted it went viral to and by most of taco bell fans and non, accusing the company of neglecting the health rules for its customers.

Sure taco bell replied on their news platform.

They also replied to posts from customers on their timeline, but clearly this wasn't enough as all the comments were complaints and seeking for further information regarding the crisis.

After that Taco bell updated their status on the news platform

Lessons taught from Taco Bell crisis:

1) If you find any shared content about your brand on social media, you need to ask yourself 3 questions,

• Will it present negative feedback about my brand?
• Will it harm my brand image and reputation?
• What my fans will think of it?

2) If you are having a problem on social media hurry up and go solve it on social media, the problem could have been handled better if Taco Bell spoke to their fans on social media, who were first asking before they became complainers

3) Listening tools, like Topsy and monitoring your brand name online, is very important to detect any issue before it goes viral and turn into crisis.

This was our lessons, now tell us, what would you have done if you were on the social media team of Taco Bell? and how would you have solved the crisis?

Social-Media

Even though many marketers consider dropping Facebook because of all the updates it has done to it`s reach algorithm, which made most of business pages pay in order to reach their fans, Yet it looks like facebook is not interested in the intentions and consideration of the marketers.

Facebook will be launching Facebook business manager tool, which allow advertisers who manage different large organizations, people, run different ads, and assign admin roles, to work on it more seamlessly at the same time.

With Business manager you will be able to easily scale your business and marketing efforts, as you will be managing everything on the same platform, Pages, ads, people you are working with on the page and your large organization employees,

To check the business admin experience for yourself, check this video,

You can join in from here https://business.facebook.com/ but if it`s not available to you now, you can contact your sales representative and if you don`t have one, just enter your email at the bottom of the page to be contacted when Business Manager is available to you. 

What you think of the new tool?

Social-Media

No one can expect what can happen with social media these days.

As it hasn't become just a way to interact with our friends and family only, but it also offered us a way to engage with our favorite brands and business, online 

And on the other hand, allowed brands to interact with its beloved fans and gather data about them.

But social media is not all about love, sometimes the relation between customer and brand social media presence turns into crisis like we discussed in Taco Bell

And the only solution lies within

1. Before the crisis happen.
2. After the crisis happen.

1) Before the crisis happen, you need to:

1- Listen

And pay close attention to what your customers say about your brand and to your brand.

- Use monitoring tools to know what your customers say about your brand online like, 

Topsy, Radian6, Sysomos, Vocus, RowFeeder and etc..

2- Answer your customers

Answer your customer questions and appreciate their feedback and opinions on your social media platforms.

3- Set your business social media guidelines “House rules”

Set your customer expectations, when they should expect your answer, what they shouldn't post on your wall and what is allowed, when you are open and what is your weekends and your terms and conditions.

4- Choose your social media team carefully

A lot of social media crisis happened because the agency or the employee responsible wasn`t care enough to put some thought in his post, which led to misunderstanding by fans and finally a crisis, so you need to choose your social media team with cautious.

2) After the crisis happen.

This is it, no matter what you did, the crisis happened, now what are you going to do to keep the peace on your social media presence.

1- Acknowledge the crisis

The first thing you need to do after your crisis post went viral, even if you deleted it, is to not ignore it or saying that your account was hacked and you are not responsible for the crisis,

Acknowledge the crisis, step up to it and say you were wrong.

2- It`s okay to say I'm sorry.

Now that you have acknowledged the crisis it`s time to say that you are sorry for the harm it did to your fans.

At least if you're not going to say you’re sorry make an announcement that indicate that you appreciate your customers feedback and this crisis won't go easy, with some actions that will be done.

3- Respond thoughtfully.

The usual from your fans, is to be divided some will appreciate your apology and others will not, your role here is choose the words you will use to respond to them carefully, Don`t...

• Attack them
• Overreact in your reply
• Make your replies long ones, complex and misleading

Now you should have managed to get through your crisis with least damages to your brand as you can.

What you will do in your social media crisis?.

Social-Media

Social media for business is not about what your product is, it's about knowing what your customers want to hear from your brand, and listening to what they say about your name, allow you to...

• Gather data about your fans.
• Analyze customer feedback.
• Track any issue before it turn into crisis.
• Better crisis management.

But what if…..

What if you did all of that, and you faced a crisis like the one Burger King surprisingly faced on their Twitter account,

It all started when burger king Twitter account was hacked on Feb-18-2013, and it`s profile pic and the name was changed to McDonalds and McDonalds logo, tweeting Tweets to promote McDonalds from a burger king Account is considered a crisis indeed.

The case went Viral between fans and non ones, leaving everyone in wonder how this happened and predicting a nightmare for the social media team of Burger King.

With nothing else they can do Burger King made a statement about the Twitter hacking

All of this actually considered social media crisis for burger king, except that what happened after was unexpected.

As Burger King followers increased from 77K to 111K and 1000s of mentions, and for the first time Burger King was a trend on Twitter.

It turns out that most of the fans hated the hack, and felt empathy for the brand, and unlike any other social media crisis the social media team weren't fired.

Even McDonalds Tweeted about it

Actually Burger King social media team felt relief that they tweeted after they had the account back

Conclusion,

- Sometimes what you consider a crisis will show you the real color of your fans, who will support you and stand by you till the end.

- You should really choose some difficult Passwords for your social media account to avoid being in this situation.

Social-Media

He said.. - We need to improve our Marketing Strategy, What’s your opinions?

-- It’s time to Start our Social Media Presence!

- So How to start ?

-- Of course we will use Facebook!, Twitter should be listed too!, but the World is going mobile so we must use Instagram, may be vine too, but .. how about B2B customers.. so should we create a LinkedIn company Page or a personal account .. What about Google Plus ?

- Oh, How we will manage all of them!!

-- Ok, Social Media is important but Let’s start it later!

- hey, didn’t you see our competitor is 1M Fan!!

-- What?! , No we must start now! But what we will do ?!

As Agreed, If you failed to plan you are planning to fail!

And it may be the most important rule in social media.. So let’s start building social media Strategy that make sense!

Crafting a social media strategy from scratch is not an easy task, but by applying SOSTAC model developed by PR Smith, you will be able to create a social media strategy, applicable to any type of business by following the 6 steps of the SOSTAC model,

1) Situation analysis

2) Objective

3) Strategy

4) Tactics

5) Actions

6) Control

The following example will allow you the apply the SOSTAC model on any line of business for social media planning.

imagine if you are going on a trip, before you start the trip you need to..

1) Situation analysis.

First you should ask yourself ..

• Where are you now?
• What do you need out of this trip?
• How much money do you have?
• What’s the options that are available to visit?

In your Business, to get your Situation Analysis, you should ask:

• What’s your current online presence?
• What’s your problems in this presence?
• What’s your Strength and Weakness points?
• Who’s your targeted customers?
• Who’s your customers?
• What resources do you have ?
• Who’s your competitors and what’s their situation?

2) Objective.

Now you know where you stand and you are ready to choose where you are going for? by this we mean sitting your objectives, where you want to go on the long and short term.

Keep in mind that your objectives must be “SMART” Specific, measurable, able to achieve, realistic, and timely.

- Specific, Where you want to go and what expected results to get from this objective.

- Measurable, You must be able to measure your objectives, so you can track if they need updates or not?

- Be realistic about what you are able to achieve, don't set your expectations too high when you know the results already via your data expectations.

- Timely, all objectives on social media need to be set within a time line.

3) Strategy.

After you choose where you want to go, the next question will be "How will you  go there?"

Which road you will take, the highway, the train or any other way that will take you there!

By this we mean, what strategy you will use to achieve your objectives?.

What ever it takes within your resources is considered your strategy, but this step is more strategically beneficial rather than tactical one, Strategy is the big picture that describes how you will get there.

4) Tactics.

It is the chosen transportation type on the road to go there upon your strategy, you will use the train or plane or the bus.

Tactics are the details of the strategy, what you will do within the strategy you planned.

It's the chosen platforms and tools that allows you to achieve your strategy objective perfectly.

5) Actions.

How you will pay the fees, will set in the front of the bus or you will take the last flight on your way!!.

Actions are making your tactics happen, it`s the process where you manage your social media platform, and implementation of the tools and the content planned in Tactics step.

6) Control.

Is all about choosing who you will take with you, who will be responsible for the map and packing the bags and who you will ask if you are lost or you didn't go there.

Control is all about monitoring whether your objectives are being achieved or not (KPIs) and who does what on every step of the plan.

- Your KPIs, are your key performance indicators, the metrics you use to know if you are achieving your goals successfully or not.

SOSTAC model can be applied to any social media planning and applicable for any business, try it out and tell us what you think?

Social-Media

In order to choose social media platform for your business, you need to ask yourself 3 questions,

1) What's your needs from social media?

2) Who are your target audience and where they are exist?

3) How you will use that platform?

1) what's your needs from social media?

What you need from social media will define the right platform for you.

If you are considering building relationship with your customers, consider Platforms that support friend and family, with different types of content and communication techniques.

But if you are considering promoting business events, then you might want to consider a platform that support business networking and professional interests.

Different platforms differ with your goal

2) who are your target audience and where they are exist?

Defining your target audience is the second metric, in order to choose your social media platform, Defining their age, demographics and Social media user penetration in countries, can support you in defining them and where they exist.

Users by age.

Social media users penetration by Demographics

Social media, users penetration in middle east countries.

3) How you will use that platform?

Now you have chosen the suitable platform for your business goals, you need undestand how you will use that platform.

• Whether you will use photos, videos, and even text only, planning your content within your brand identity will allow you better results and more accurate expectations.

• You should take a look to your competitors and their social media presence and communication techniques with their strength and weakness points online.

To optimize your platform to its fullest potentials you need to understand

• The interests of your social media fans and followers
• The communication method they use on the platform you choose, trends, funny,...etc

Now that you have your own social media platform, Do you have any questions still make it hard to decide?

Don't hesitate, ask us Now!

Sources, www.Go-Gulf.com

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