Facebook Users are PIGS!

So what makes a Facebook Page better (or at least, more interesting) than other tools to aid in the Consumer Relationship Cycle?  It is one of very few tools where a brand can interact with consumers along almost all fronts of the Cycle.  The one thing that Facebook doesn't do is provide e-commerce functionality, allowing you to actually buy stuff on the site, but it comes pretty freaking close.  On top of that, almost everything is free.

http://verydemotivational.memebase.com 

I like bullets to list things:

• Avenues of Market Awareness
• Ads / Sponsored Stories (the only thing that really costs money)
• People's interaction with the Brand's page typically gets reflected on their wall and other's News Feeds:  Likes, Shares, Recommendations
• Methods to sway the flocks towards your brand
• Media (Photos, Videos, Links to external sites like reviews and news articles)
• People's interaction with the Brand's page typically gets reflected on their wall and other's News Feeds:  Likes, Shares, Recommendations
• Continuous Interaction
• Feedback
• News in a relatively non-intrusive way (Facebook News Feed vs. E-mail Newsletter)
• People's interaction with the Brand's page typically gets reflected on their wall and other's News Feeds:  Likes, Shares, Recommendations

Promoting interaction with a brand's page is obviously the most important aspect of managing a Facebook Page.  However, you can't promote interaction if people aren't "liking" the page.  Getting people to visit, like, accept your news feed, and interact is an entire Consumer Relationship Cycle in and of itself.  You're practically selling a Blog (really?) to promote the Brand.  

So let's think about just who we are targeting in order to raise awareness of the Gumbo Shop Facebook Page.  Warning: The following may seem extremely obvious, but as I've found, you sometimes have to go over these as people tend to not explicitly think about them... because... well, they're obvious.

Neo Geo's Obviously Awesome
http://keithapicary.bandcamp.com/

People Who Already Know of the Gumbo Shop and Like the Place

It will be pretty easy to get these people to visit the page and yet they are by far the most important.  This is because they are most likely to enthusiastically (and sometimes, emphatically) promote your brand as they interact with the page.  The Gumbo Shop has a pretty large work-lunch following.  If you're starting out extremely early, these people would pretty much be made up of your friends.  The usual points of entry to the page would be through Facebook Check-Ins or the fact that you just told them to visit the page in person (or with a sign on your cash register).

People Who Only know of the Gumbo Shop, but Haven't Ever Visited...

...or maybe at some point a long time ago.  At least they're aware of this place.  This is where the page content can tip them over into actually visiting the Gumbo Shop.  

Have no clue that the Gumbo Shop existed...

Honestly, I consider this group of people to practically be in the same bucket as those who haven't ever visited or haven't been in a long time.  This is because the starting point of interaction is the same for both groups: ads or news feeds from other friends on Facebook.  Of course, people could stumble upon your page from a link on your Website and from there a slew of other sources.... buuuuut we'll get to that some other time.

Next time, we'll talk more of these "points of entry."  There are many, much like in Deus Ex... which I've seriously been neglecting, lately...