Capitalize on Facebook Messenger App

Facebook Inc. is opening up its messenger app so that other software developers can add new features, such as photos videos and other enhancements to their online conversations (Bloomberg 2015). Take a quick look at Bloomberg's quick 3 minute video to get a brief on Facebook's F8 conference below

*Skip to 1:31 to see what Mark had to say about making the Messenger App a place where customers can communicate with businesses that they care about.

Mark puts out a clear example of how this can be used to help your business, "if customer has put an order online, but would like to change it all they have to do is communicate through the Messenger App to get it done". Mark adds, "that when a customer has placed an order they can receive shipping information, receipts, and more also through the Messenger App".

Here are five suggestions to how your SME business could capitalize on Facebook opening up its Messenger App to other businesses and developers:

1. Provide more effective means of communication

Your SME Business could provide faster communication to the person's mobile, with simple and easy responses to allow effective initial enquiries to be addressed.

2. Give "real-time" information transmission to ease customer worries

Mark's earlier suggestion that businesses could send important information to customers after completing their purchases such as tracking information, and e-receipts that can be immediately scanned when physical items are delivered.

3. Add a key advantage, "human-factor" to your digital business

Technology has a tendency to alienate a person and perform very much like it was intended to be, a robot, but your business could be very different in having convenient means of communication to provide effective personalized support, and more.

4. Follow-up for services

What better way than to follow-up with a client or prospect right after a presentation or consultation, with scheduled future appointments that could link up with their phone's calendar applications, or even suggestion of future available times that your customers could likely need.

5. Save paper

You could reduce the need for a printable receipt, having to submit forms with digital integration. This also reduces repetitive work such as data entry.

Key Advantage: 44.78% of Malaysian Population Adoption

Here is hard evidence, empirical statistics, to show you why Facebook Messenger is a big thing. Lets compare Facebook Messenger with a notable competitor WeChat. According to Hays (2014) WeChat had 40 million users in 2014. While Facebook has some 1.23 billion users at the end of 2013 (Sedghi 2014).

Not convinced? Can't see how this helps you? Data suggests that Facebook adoption in Malaysia is staggering with 13.3 million users in 2013 making it 44.78% (World Bank Data: Malaysia Population is 29.7 million in 2013) of total Malaysian population (Mahadi 2013).

Take that approximate and multiply that with an indicator, and you would get a rough estimated market size to make use of. Combine that with industry contribution to Malaysia's GDP, approximately (USD 313.2 billion x 3) MYR 939.6 billion should give you a rough estimate of the market opportunity available to your business (World Bank 2015).

Barriers to entry, is a bunch of smush.

All you need to worry about is getting your business strategy right. Hosting for your SME Business is super easy with worry free hosting like this and you don't need to develop yourself, all you need to do is to hire a professional consultancy company to implement Facebook Messenger App into your business offerings.

photo by Facebook video by Bloomberg

References:

Bloomberg 2015, Facebook Opens Up Messenger App to Developers and Businesses, Bloomberg, <http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-25/facebook-opens-up-messenger-app-to-developers-businesses>

Hay, S 2014, The WeChat Revolution, The Clickz, <http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2363343/the-wechat-revolution>

Mahadi, N 2013, 13.3 million M'sians are Facebook users, Borneo Post, <http://www.theborneopost.com/2013/06/16/13-3-million-msians-are-facebook-users/>

Sedghi, A 2014, Facebook: 10 Years of Social Networking in Numbers, The Guardian,
<http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/feb/04/facebook-in-numbers-statistics>

World Bank 2015, Malaysia, World Bank Data, <http://data.worldbank.org/country/malaysia>

Note:

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Set Up Your Facebook Page in 3 Easy Steps

Malaysians should greatly consider Facebook as a medium for marketing, because of its high potential for it. With more than 1 billion users, Facebook is the world's #1 social network. Facebook offers access to an incredibly diverse audience that spans globally, to different ages, and interests. Southeast Asia has more than 190 million Internet users according to Techinasia. In 2012, according to Internet World Stats Malaysia alone has approximately 13 million Facebook users, 46.6% penetration.

This makes sense for marketers to have a Facebook strategy. You don't need to be an International business to only benefit from Facebook. Considering that there is a large amount of local Malaysian Facebook users it makes sense for local businesses to get involved as well to target very specific types of users, generate more awareness, and find potentially new business leads.

Here is a case study from EVERWORKS.com Malaysia's leading Colocation Hosting, Server Colocation Services and Mobile Hosting Provider, "Implementing Facebook has been a great way for EVERWORKS to keep our customers informed over scheduled server maintenance, important announcements, festive greetings, and Facebook has also allowed us to keep a closer, more personal, relationship with our customers. It has increased awareness on EVERWORKS brand, while at the same time keeping costs relatively reasonable, as compared to more conventional means."

Before jumping in on the bandwagon and getting ahead of yourself, the first most important thing to do is to create a Facebook Page for your business, which is relatively simple to do. Here I will take you through all 3 steps to set up a basic page.

Business vs Personal

With all things in the beginning, you need to first identify whether you are a Business or Personal user. This is fundamental because there are differences for businesses and personal Facebook accounts, representing in a Business Page and a Personal Profile. Personal profiles are designed for individual persons, with features and options that make connecting and engaging with friends easier. By contrast, Business Pages provide options to help promotion and marketing. Business Pages offer ways to connect with more people, more targeted advertising, plus a big bonus of analytics through Facebook Insights that would give information on what type or how your advertising is responding to conceived Facebook marketing plans.

Additional notes: If you are promoting yourself as a "brand", it might seem logical to use your profile page to promote yourself, but I would recommend a Business Page instead. A separation between personal and business is healthy, and the Business Page does offer some technical advantages, such as allowing for additional page managers, Facebook Insights (discussed earlier), and others.

Step 1: Create a Page

There are two options for creating a Business Page

1. Set it up from your Facebook profile
2. Create a new account for your business.

If the second choice is what you are going for, all you need to do is, log-out of your profile and click "sign-up" from the Facebook homepage and then choose "create a page". The disadvantage of separating accounts is that you would just have to deal with another password, and you would have to log-out and log-back-in to access the other account.

Personally I prefer to administer my Pages from my personal profile. It is just easier to manage and I can move between accounts freely. 

Note: People who like your Business Page can't see your Personal Profiles.

To create a Business Page from your Personal Profile, click on the drop down menu in the top right hand corner of your profile and choose "Create a page", and walk through the Facebook Page creation  steps.

Quick Tip:

1. Profile photos should be at least 180 x 180 pixels when uploaded.
2. Facebook will automatically publish your page, so before you go any further, unpublish it. This allows you the time to tweak it until it looks nice before introducing it to the world. To unpublished a page, go to Edit Page, then Edit Settings, and click Unpublish Page. When you are ready and satisfied go back to the same place and Publish your page.

Step 2: Complete your Page Info

With most of the formalities out of the way, it is time to dig deeper and spend a little more time on your Business Page (the stuff that matter). Add a long description, or tweak your short description. Short descriptions are meant to be short, so try to keep it less than 155 characters and include your website URL too. This will show up under your Business Page's profile photo so make sure it is a quick brief and it allows for your fans to click easily to your website. Include keywords to help with Search Engine Optimization - SEO - (everything counts).

further reading: Find out more about SEO, the common mistakes people make, and more.

Choose a unique Facebook Business Page address to make it easier for people to find your Business Page.

This is an example of EVERWORKS's Facebook Business Page URL:
www.facebook.com/everworks

Be careful to get it right the first time, because Facebook shows no mercy, for once your Facebook Business Page address has been set it can never be changed.

Step 3: Cover Photo

The last step (until further updates come along) is to upload a cover photo. Also Facebook has recently relaxed its 20% rule - further reading: Facebook Page guidelines. Now cover photos can include more text, which allows for more promotions, but even with this added advantage you should aim for a clean, uncluttered image. Cover photos should be sized at 851x315 pixels. It would be the best if your cover photo could attract the people in which you are targeting, and not just focus on plain advertising.

Now that your page is complete and you are happy with everything don't forget to publish your Business Page that was previously set in unpublish mode so that it would allow you to prepare everything.

Show us your pages? Take a screenshot and share them with us in the comments section below!

facebook logo from ajc1

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The New Facebook #hashtag Feature

The Facebook #hashtag, the buzz that is on the Internet, causing excitement in some parts, and drawing a lot of concerns as well. There have been a lot of speculation surrounding this topic, and much of it just speculation. I can't give you a definite answer for most things as well, but here is a little overview on what to potentially expect in future.

"Between 88 and 100 million Americans log into Facebook every night during prime time TV hours, which represents a significant opportunity for broadcasters, advertisers, and our other partners," Justin Osofsky director, platform partnerships and operations at Facebook, said in a blog post on Wednesday. (Follow more of this report here)

Twitter's use of the #hashtag:

The #symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages

Using hashtags to categorize Tweets by keyword:

1. Twitter users use the hashtag symbol # before a relevant keyword or phrase (with no spaces) in their Tweet to categorize those Tweets and show up more easily in Twitter searches.
2. Hashtagged words that become very popular are often Trending Topics
3. and much more

Example: in a tweet @everworks_my uses the hashtag #iGoSMS. 

Using hashtags correctly on Twitter:

1. Don't #spam #with #hashtags.
2. Use hashtags that are relevant to its topic.

Facebook's use of the #hashtag:

Facebook's use of the #hashtag is similar to Twitter's adaptation of it, where keywords or topics created after the symbol # (with no spaces) will categorize that message.

Privacy: A Facebook spokesperson commented saying that from a privacy perspective, "hashtags will work similarly to graph search," which has left us in the dark, on whether #hashtags will promote a greater sense of openness. Big questions are being drawn on the privacy of the new Facebook #hashtag feature, but a lot has yet to be known, privacy is after all important to everyone.

Let us know what you think:

1. Will you use the new Facebook #hashtag?
2. Is privacy important to you?
3. Are Facebook #hashtags going to affect advertising ability?

Sourced image ViralBlog | Twitter Hashtag Reference

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