Case Study: A Facebook Story
The following statistic is my new favorite conversation starter for family, friends, clients; heck, even strangers: 78% of online U.S. households are now on Facebook. It’s no secret that this social media community has taken our population by storm. But this isn’t about my love affair with Facebook; it’s a success story for business.
Numerous brands have adopted Facebook as a way to interact with their fans and push products or services. Some do a great job and some just throw up pages with the hope that they’ll be a success. We have found a way to go beyond what standard Facebook pages offer, and provide our clients with a unique Facebook experience. Here’s a recent example of how we have accomplished this feat.
The Task
Take our existing Facebook pages for Travel Channel and make them more viral, more informative, more interactive, and more targeted.
How We Did It
In order to make the Travel Channel pages more viral, we took advantage of the sharing functionality accessible through Facebook’s API. We built a unique left-hand sidebar for every featured tab, which enables visitors to share specific content with their friends. We also included share buttons on video and blog posts to allow users more flexibility when suggesting content.
We made these pages more informative by featuring content frequently requested by fans. In this case, that content was episode information for each show. We created a custom tab with information on when an episode would air and provided links back to TravelChannel.com for pictures, travel guides, and episode descriptions.
The pages became more interactive through our custom polling application. If you use Facebook, you know how popular polling is within the system. We took this concept and created a tab where users can tell us what they think about recent episodes. This application also provides Travel Channel with a way to gather feedback quickly from viewers.
Finally, we strategized to make Travel Channel’s pages more targeted. Brands are all about gaining new fans on Facebook, but they often neglect to tell users why to become a fan. We solved this problem by creating a landing page where all non-fans would land. This tab includes a welcome message, an overview with information about the show, and a call-to-action suggesting they become a fan of the page.
The Results
It’s all about meeting business objectives, so here are the results of the re-design. In addition to the four objectives I listed above, our goal was to increase traffic back to TravelChannel.com. Within one month after re-designing their show pages, traffic has increased significantly and Facebook has become a top-referring source for the site.
Do you have a Facebook success story? I’d love to hear about it!
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