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Just when we all were getting the hang of social sharing and what it could mean to brands and organizations, Facebook switched it up to make things more consistent!  During their recent F8 Conference, Facebook announced the "Become a Fan" feature on Pages has been changed to "Like" to make it more consistent across the entire platform.  When I saw this news, I wasn't sure how to take it, but knew it would spur a lot of new questions.  So, let's cover some of those common questions and see if we can clear up the mud.

1.  I have icons for all the social pages my company has with links to those pages, isn't that enough?

You definitely want people to follow your updates, your brand and your organization.  Including the icons and links to your pages is a great way to spread the word amongst an audience you already have captive.  But how do you get your email content out to a new audience?  An excellent way to do this is to combine your "Join us on.....links" with our social sharing links that can be embedded in your emails.

2.  I have sharing icons, how is the widget different?

Our social sharing widget not only enables you to determine which networks you would like to share out to, but also which content you wish to allow to be shared, along with the powerful tracking mechanism.  When you include the icons, you have tracking of who clicked on them, but you never know what happens from there.  When you use the social sharing widget, you can track which content is shared, to which networks, and what impressions you are getting once that content is shared.

3.  Now that people cannot become fans, what do I do?

According to Facebook, nothing really changes in the way a Page acts and is tracked.  Liking a page is just the same as becoming a Fan. In fact, many believe that using the Like terminology might make Facebook users more apt to follow brands since it does not seem like an outright endorsement.

Clear as mud?  So what is a marketer to do now? First, make sure you are asking recipients and customers to follow you on the various networks.  Do this by including links to your pages.  However, place these links somewhere separate from your content, so they are not confused for sharing links.  I often place ours in a sidebar or in a footer. Second, use the social sharing widget to embed the sharing links in each section of content you would like to share. Finally, change your terminology wherever you might have referenced Become a Fan and simply generalize it to Follow us on....Chad Richards, of Firebelly Marketing recently posted a blog that outlines some of these changes along with links to more articles on the updates.

Three easy steps to multiply your audience and how far your message can reach.  Here's a sample of all three tips incorporated into our recent newsletter.  Have questions, be sure to comment or contact us at 317-915-9400!

Carissa Newton | Marketing