1. SME Toolkit SA’s Facebook journey Petro Bothma May 2012

2. Why Facebook  as of April 2012 > 900m active users  highly accessible, scalable communication techniques  web-based and mobile technology ( = increased reach)  multi-leveled, multi-way communication  easier collection of user information

4. Challenges before starting  to get our heads around a new and fairly unfamiliar platform  as a marketer, I had to re-learn types of messages – not to market, but to engage  perception of possible negativity against the site and how to deal with it

5. Understanding Facebook  it’s all about the PLACE where a CONVERSATION happens  meeting of ‘friends’ or business associates (many-to-many)  voluntary participation  unlike advertisements, people CHOOSE to interact with you  Engage – not manage – the audience

6. Objectives Interest interest engagement engage constant connection Engagement, interest and constant connection keep fans coming back to a company’s Facebook fan page Facebook captures an average of more than 465 minutes of people’s time each month. If that’s true of every one of the platform’s 900m worldwide users, Facebook now accounts for almost 800,000 years of human time every month

7. Objectives (cont’d)  to reach a different audience in a different “place”  to bring attention and traffic to SME Toolkit South Africa  to engage and get conversations flowing  to form loyal ‘friendships’ – carrying over to the website

8. Effective strategy  Editorial calendar – proper planning  Using an integrated strategy with Business Partners SM plan – cross-referencing  Share –  to create awareness with other players in the SME environment  quid pro quo

10. Effective strategy (cont’d)  Get to a targeted audience (rather than volume)  website, newsletter promotion  “like” like-minded sites, comment and share expertise and content  build a network  While focusing on the strategy – be flexible  Respond to every post/moderate daily

11. Effective strategy (cont’d)  Learn continuously – then apply  eg www.socialmediatoday.com www.allfacebook.com

12. Lessons learned  Invest time and effort daily  visible conversation  measure regularly, adapt

14. Petro Bothma pbothma@businesspartners.co.za