You wake up with a horrible tooth ache. You need a good dentist ASAP. What do you do?
A. Google dentists in your area
B. Ask you friends and family for a recommendation
For most people, the answer will be B because they will give more credence to a friend’s opinion or recommendation. It is therefore a simple jump in logic to conclude that Facebook inquiries and recommendations are more valuable than a Google sponsored ad or organic hit. The former results are from your social network (i.e., people you know and trust). The latter results are arbitrary and less reliable.
This simple concept spurred word-of-mouth guru Dave Kerpen to rename his business last year to Likeable Media, and focus his company’s efforts on helping businesses to be “liked” on Facebook and to use Facebook and other social media as an effective marketing tool. In his new book entitled “Likeable Social Media”, Kerpen shares best practices to increase your Facebook page’s likeability and help improve your social media marketing efforts.
Kerpen covers the importance of listening and engagement, how to handle comments, how to build your fan base and a host of other useful topics. The book contains various ways to improve your social media efforts. While easy-to-implement, these best practices will require an on-going effort.
One of my favorite case studies in the book is the example of “I love Mary @ McDonalds/Chandler”. Mary is a beloved McDonald’s employee. One of her fans created a Facebook page for her and she now has over 1,400 fans. Various comments are posted on the page including “Mary is the best! This is the picture of us at my 40th birthday party on Saturday night”. Clearly, this example shows the importance of the people within your organization.
Full disclosure: Dave used a story from my traffic ticket law firm as an example of good story telling (pages 141-144) and also gave me a free copy of his book. Even if I had to pay for it, however, I recommend Likeable Social Media.
I give it two thumbs up!
