Thursday, July 12, 2012
Facebook and Tampa Bay Host Commitee team up in social media seminar
Posted by Nicole Martinez on Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 7:41 PM
This morning’s seminar at the Glazer’s children’s museum is one of a series of nationwide programs apart of Small Business Boost tour , a partnership among Facebook, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent business. It started as a 6-month program in September 2011, but its popularity has led to its extension throughout the rest of the year.
Brooke Oberwetter, member of Facebook’s public policy team in Washington D.C., said that about three-quarters of businesses owners that attend the events already have a Facebook account, but want to learn how to optimize their profile in order to better engage their target audiences. More than just having a online presence, its important to regularly post content that people want to see, said Oberwetter.
“Most of them intuitively know that they should be posting content, they just don’t necessarily know what would be engaging, so that’s a lot of what we talk about” said Oberwetter.
The seminar went over various concepts of having a local business page on Facebook, from “checking-in” to “sharing” to “pinning” featured content at the top of a profile.
An “insights” tool on business profiles track demographics of fans and visitors, turning over stats not only on common information like age and gender, but audience responses to different types of content. This way, a business owner can see if fans respond more to posts featuring photos, video or polls.
Oberwetter said that the most important thing that Facebook has done for advertisement is incorporate the element of social context. Sponsored stories advertisements show up on the profiles of friends of people who have “liked” certain businesses.
“Having that social context there is changing the way that people interact with advertising, and with the web overall” she said. During the seminar, it was said that when a user sees an advertisement for a business or product that a friend has interacted with, they are 68 percent more likely to remember that ad
Ken Jones, President and CEO of the Host committee, said the idea for seminar is for small business to come away with something they can use to increase business during and after the convention.
“The worst thing that can happen is for a political party committee to come into a city, drop their headquarters, run a convention, then turn the lights off and go home.” said Jones.
The Host Committee’s COO Matt Becker said that by learning how to use social media for marketing and promotion is one of the ways that local businesses can be aggressive in economic opportunities of the RNC.
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