How to turn Facebook fans into customers?

Interesting new development to help turn Facebook fans into customers:

Facebook tools up!

Facebook is taking steps to boost ad spending directly through brand pages, while also giving marketers new tools for managing their presence on the social network. The social network has rolled out promoted posts to extend the reach of page content, as well as providing companies different access levels to their Facebook pages internally.

Promoted posts allow Facebook page administrators to boost exposure for their posts beyond the normal reach they get in fans’ news feeds — and without having to go through a separate ad dashboard. Facebook, however, doesn’t specify how much larger a percentage of a brand’s fans will see a post that’s promoted.

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/175906/facebook-rolls-out-promoted-posts-new-page-tools.html#ixzz1wU7d5r4O

Well one already practiced method used to good effect  by online betting provider Paddy Power is to use Sponsored Stories, which also artificially raise the number of people who will see the post, while still retaining the benefits of social content. The basic on a brief slideshare taken from the Adobe Summit 2012 for Sony EU:

View more PowerPoint from Stuart Hall
Plus other useful resources via e-mint:
  • Cathy Ma: “Techlightenment is another company that has done extensive research on the value of fans  (but obviously is incentivised as they are a social engagement/ads optimisation/analytics consultancy).”
  • Mecca Ibrahim: Or simply check out ‘Quantifying the Value of a Facebook Fan: Forrester Analyst Report April 2012′ if you prefer a nice pdf to read at bedtime.

Micro mistakes in an e-book

09:09 Just for fun today I am counting how many micro
organisational mistakes today to help improve my focus – up
to 9 (+/-1).

Or just download the e-book created with the help of tweetbook.in, with my last 3,200 tweets since 31 March 2010 to date, and keyword search for other micro-humour within the Adobe pdf.

Dr Michael Fish is in the building

Dr Michael Fish is in the building

Drop that pet project

At the Adobe Summit 2012 on Tuesday I heard a presentation from Arianna Huffington on the importance of wisdom, on why men buy underwear (answer: when they are happy), and why it’s good to give up on things occasionally. The last topic was really about personal projects. She gave the example of trying to learn to ski, before finally deciding it was time to give it up and instead drink hot chocolate and read a book while her friends went skiing.

By coincidence that evening I went to a pre-event meetup at the Grafton Arms for the NHS Hack Day to meet some of the people involved. And I decided after half a pint of Speckled Hen it was time to give up on the idea and give back my ticket for the weekend. My medical tech project to give it a grand title has been an interesting but not very successful ride. Interestingly this general lack of success was also picked up by Ernst & Young, in their valuable feedback on my digial innovation manager application late last year; anyhow projects listed below, including:

  • 4.5 years at the Health Development Programme, including work on complex systems to inform our national healthy schools programme; I got an award for making tea when I left:-)
  • A few months at the GMC before moving swiftly on to pastures new..
  • Working with Patient Opinion but for a v.brief while, at Headshift
  • Putting together a proposal for a shift handover system and submitting it to the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement - which was rejected
  • Helping launch medical imaging portal MedicExchange, which didn’t live up to it’s anti-monopolistic OEM busting potential

Anyway you get the picture. But it’s time to move on, funnily enough just when I feel more organised and more commercial in my outlook. In fact instead of going to the hack day I am planning to attend City Index’s free seminar. It won’t change the world, but it could help pay the bills.