Facebook marketing tied to greater understanding of intermediary steps

Facebook and comScore recently released a new report that contradicts a popular notion that Facebook is subpar when it comes to advertising your business.

The social network is becoming more marketing-friendly, as seen in the report The Power of Like 2: How Social Marketing Works. The piece aims to instruct advertisers on how to best generate return on investment with social marketing,  and found that Facebook does have a positive effect on viewers when it comes time to choose one brand over another, WebProNews reports.

The key, says the news source, is repeated and prolonged exposure.

"Contrary to popular belief, click through rates are a relatively weak indicator of performance and what [Facebook and comScore] call 'view-through' may be what's of more interest when it comes to brand impression," the news source states in a separate article. "What they found is the impact or impression is the result of a cumulative effect taking place over weeks or months after constantly being exposed to the message or brand (or both)."

Brands using Facebook for marketing purposes tend to forget intermediary steps between getting fans and achieving ROI. The news source cites a visual in the report which points to three middle steps - fan reach, engagement and amplification - that help marketing efforts become more successful over time.

Fan reach involves brand messages reaching fans in their news feeds, engagement is when fans talk about news feed content and amplification is when news feed content spread to the target's friends.

"For too long, brands' focus on fan acquisition as a primary indicator of success has ignored the ways in which social marketing actually works to achieve marketing objectives like reach, brand resonance and ultimately sales," the report states, as quoted by the media outlet. "By understanding the core elements of maximizing reach on Facebook - fan reach, engagement and amplification - brands can benchmark their performance against other brands and devise strategies to improve on these dimensions and deliver measurable social marketing ROI."

According to MarketingProfs, marketing efforts on Facebook should be action-driven, with ads that are organic and genuine. Examples include creating video that permits more actions, such as clicks to learn more that induce in-video responses, as well as showcasing new product lines or posting interactive content with a call-to-action paired with an image.