Social media – Phil Bernstein's Advertising, Marketing, and Sales Training Blog

A Facebook Hack Gets a Shoe Store Free Advertising

A few years ago I met with the owner of an upscale ladies shop in a southeastern state. The store sold a wide variety of women’s clothing, but the biggest revenue category was shoes.

Apparently, ladies buy shoes. Who knew?

Facebook social media advertising tip from a shoe store owner — Photo by MoustacheGirl

[UPDATE 4/14, 1PM PACIFIC]: As Susan Rich points out in the comments below, this technique can be even more powerful in Instagram.]

Our conversation had turned to social media. I asked the owner how effective his Facebook page was as a marketing tool. “It’s okay, I guess,” he said. “But I’ve got a much better way to use Facebook.”

That got my attention.

“How do you do that?” I asked.

“My customers all have smartphones, which means they have a camera. Whenever a customer tries on a pair of shoes and decides to buy them, we ask if they’d like us to take their picture — with their phone. Women like to show off their new shoes, so most of them say yes.”

“Do they let you post those pictures on your Facebook page?” I asked.

“Some do, but that doesn’t really matter,” he replied. “The important thing is that as soon as they go home, they post the photo on their own Facebook page. And they usually mention that they got the shoes at my store.

So we just got a free Facebook ad, and it gets seen by 500 of her friends. Two or three times a week, someone will walk into my store and ask to try on a pair of shoes their friend posted on Facebook.

All of this costs us nothing – we don’t even pay for the camera!”

The store owner had stumbled on a great way to use Facebook in its most effective form – to accelerate word-of-mouth.

In the years since we had that conversation, it has become even harder for a business to get its posts seen without paying for it. The organic reach of a business Facebook post has sunk to an average of 2%.

The shoe store owner had come up with a way to beat the system on a small scale. It still works.

It’s a technique that can be used in a variety of consumer settings:

A furniture store can take pictures of a customer’s new couch, in the customer’s home.
–
A car dealer can shoot a photo of a happy couple standing next to the new SUV they just bought.
–
A window company can take pictures of a homeowner posing in front of her newly-installed windows.

The key is to take the picture with the customer’s phone, not yours.

Rather than begging people to “like” your Facebook page, you can intersect with existing consumer behavior. Happy customers love the show off the things they just bought… on Facebook.

Who knew?

[reminder]What’s your best traffic-building social media hack?[/reminder]

How You Can (Still) Get Free Advertising on Facebook

As Facebook’s organic reach – the free publicity a business used to be able to get on its “fan page” – drops to near zero, a technique I wrote about a couple of years ago becomes even more powerful.

In 2013 I met with with the owner of an upscale ladies boutique in the southeast. Although the store sold all manner of women’s clothing, the largest revenue driver was shoes.

The conversation had just turned to social media, and I asked the owner how effective the store Facebook page was as a marketing tool. “It’s okay, I guess,” he said. “But I found a much better way to use Facebook.”

He had my attention.

“How do you do that?” I asked.

“Most of my customers have smartphones. Whenever a customer tries on a pair of shoes and decides to buy them, we ask if they’d like us to take their picture… using their phone. Women like to show off their new shoes, so most of them say yes.”

“Do they let you post those pictures on your Facebook page?” I asked. “Some do, but I don’t really care about that,” he replied.

What makes this work is that as soon as they go home, they post that picture on their own Facebook page. And they usually mention that they got the shoes at my store.

That means that we just got a free Facebook ad, and it gets seen by 500 of my customer’s friends. Two or three times a week, someone will walk into my store and ask to try on a pair of shoes that their friend posted on Facebook. All of this costs us nothing – we don’t even pay for the camera!”

The store owner had stumbled on a great way to use Facebook in its most effective form – to accelerate word-of-mouth.

Here’s what’s happened in the two years since we had a conversation:

Facebook has made it harder and harder for a business to reach its fans without paying for advertising.
Americans’ love affair with the selfie has grown stronger.

Happy customers love to show off the things they just bought… on social media. The boutique owner I spoke to uses this to get free Facebook exposure. So can you.

It’s a technique that can be used in a variety of retail settings:

A window company can take pictures of a homeowner posing in front of her newly‐installed windows.
A car dealer can shoot a photo of a happy couple standing next to the new SUV they just bought.
A furniture store can take pictures of a customer’s new couch, in the customer’s home.

The key is to take the picture with the customer’s phone, not yours.

Jay Baer put it this way on the Convince and Convert blog:

If you want free reach, you need to do extraordinary, useful things…

You can’t fully replace your corporate Facebook program with this approach, but with reach evaporating for business pages, aren’t your employees and current customers and advocates now the very best way for you to distribute your message on Facebook?

As someone who has sold advertising and trained advertising salespeople for most of my adult life, I’m not about to condemn Facebook for doing what’s best for the company. They’ve got a business to run, and stockholders to serve.

Your best bet is to accept the reality, pay for advertising when you must, and use existing human behavior to your advantage.

[reminder]

Why Isn’t Your Advertising Working? (Don’t Blame The Media)

Some reasons to ponder come courtesy of a Roy Williams’ Monday Morning Memo essay, from way back in 2008. Read the whole thing here. Every point he makes is still valid today. Here are a couple:

2. reputation.
Consider the people who don’t buy from you. Are they buying elsewhere because they haven’t heard about your company, or is it because they have? I’ve never met a business owner willing to believe their company had a bad reputation…

7. media myths.
Are you anxious to find a more effective media? If so, you’ve got really bad ads. I’ve never seen a company fail because they were using the wrong media or reaching the wrong people. But I’ve seen thousands fail because they were saying the wrong things. A powerful message will produce results in any media.

Photo by Aurelio/dpc

In my advertising sales/consulting practice, I meet with about 200 local businesses each year.

They hear from television advertising salespeople, telling them to get out of radio because radio doesn’t work.

They hear from radio advertising salespeople, telling them to get out of newspaper because newspaper doesn’t work.

They hear from social media “experts” telling them to get out of radio, newspaper and television because traditional media doesn’t work.

Here’s the dirty little secret I pass along to them:

There are plenty of potential customers who watch television, listen to the radio, read the newspaper, and consume media online every single day. When I hear that the advertising isn’t working, it’s generally one (or more) of three problems:

1. They didn’t get the message right. You’ve got to tell a story your audience cares about, and give them a good reason to do business with you.

2. They aren’t delivering the message often enough, or consistently enough. Customers will buy when they’re ready and not a moment before. You need to keep reminding them.

3. They don’t deliver on the promises their advertising makes, and the audience doesn’t believe them.

If you tackle the issues above, you’ll get the advertising to work. If you don’t, switching media isn’t going to help.

[reminder]

Are You Making This Embarrassing Mistake With LinkedIn?

Ani DiFranco once said that every tool is a weapon if you hold it right. LinkedIn can be a very powerful sales weapon — but it will backfire if you don’t use it correctly.

the wrong way to use a radio advertising sales tool — Photo by apops/dpc

LinkedIn has become a powerful tool for researching and making contact with new prospects. But like any other tool, there’s a right way and a wrong way to use it. I’ve received a couple of egregious “wrong way” examples in the past couple of weeks.

Both came from members of LinkedIn Groups I’m also part of. The writers have figured out that being part of these groups gives them the ability to contact complete strangers who are also members. They have not figured out how to use that ability.

The first one started like this:

Hi Doctor

Hope you’re doing well.

I wanted to take a few minutes from you today to mention how “hosted” video conferencing is changing real time collaboration. Although most of us know what video conferencing is, the only difference here is the word “Hosted”. Like every technology, now video conferencing is available on demand on cloud.

Here is a whitepaper that will tell you why this technology is spreading like a wildfire.

She wanted to “take a few minutes from me today”, but she offered no reason to give her those precious minutes. It would have been helpful if she’d “taken” a few minutes of her own to learn something about me before sending the message out.

The other one went like this:

Hi,

I saw your profile and felt you might fit the profile of what we look for in our company (Elite Sales experience to the SME/Enterprise Space)

Can you please review this YouTube video of our company and what we offer, and then give me your feedback on interest level?

No, I can’t. Or, more accurately, I can, but I won’t.

Any time you attempt to communicate — on the phone, in an email, or a LinkedIn message — with a client or prospect, you are in the “attention-rental” business. You offer information to the recipient, who “pays” for that information with a very scarce resource: his or her attention.

You must offer a compelling reason for your target to give you that attention. It starts with giving some indication that you know something about them.

I suspect that the folks who sent me those messages were attracted by the ability to blast out hundreds of them with the click of a button. It’s fast, it’s easy, and requires very little thought.

It’s also spam, and they’re running the risk of having their LinkedIn accounts suspended.

With great power there must also come great responsibility. — Spiderman’s Uncle Ben

Membership in a LinkedIn Group gives you the ability to find common ground with complete strangers and build relationships with them. But it’s only an effective weapon if you hold it right.

Tech Tool Tuesday for Salespeople