arcRes Facebook Posts Engine - Get More Fans

Facebook Posts and Updates are Important, but Tedious to Manage

Posting updates and interesting comments to your Facebook Fan Pages and Facebook Wall is one of the most important things you can do to get Fans and engage them. It is also one of the most tedious and time-consuming activities for any business. Many businesses are seeking to outsource this activity, because it is not in their core competence. Now with arcRes new FanPage Posts engine the job of building the Facebook Fan pages and posting content is automated.

Timely and Relevant Facebook Posts For Special Offers

"Posting Special Offers and Packages" are great content for Fan Conversation, status updates and wall posts। They are engaging and shareable content that get mileage. Specials can be scheduled for every festival, holiday and event of the year. They can be targeted to families, couples, singles, by country, special interest groups, etc. The combination is endless. With arcRes Special Offers for Facebook app, Hotels and Tourism suppliers can easily build and display content for any target market and interest group within Facebook.

Special Offer Posts are Advertisements

Facebook, with its huge Market reach and 600,000 loyal followers, has become a major advertising medium for the largest travel companies, like Expedia. Now, even small hotels and travel suppliers can step up their Fan engagement and attract more Fans and bookings with automatic posts managed by arcResBookings tools.

Example of a Wall Post/Facebook Advertisement

With the arcRes option to create ads for specific dates and to change any special at any time; fan page and wall post updates can be current and fresh. With frequent updates and new offers, Fans are more likely to watch for the latest news and offers and return to the page frequently.

arcRes "Special Offers" Builds "Like"
Pages to Entice Fans

The app is also set up to encourage new visitors to "Like the Page" and become a Fan in order to access the information. The Like Page feature is optional. Providing extra value for Fans-only brands provides an incentive for liking the page and building a loyal Fan base।

If specials are shown only to Fans, non-Fans receive the message below and a prompt to LIKE the page (i.e., become a Fan). Non-Fans can still access the page Wall, Photos, etc.

http://arcres.com/facebook/posts-get-fans.cfm

SPECIAL OFFERS FACEBOOK POSTS IS JUST THE START

Social Media Marketing is the new norm, but it only works if it is done correctly. A good Social Media Strategy is to make engaging Fan Page posts often. Good posts get attention and are shared by Fans on their walls, in their news feeds and by active linking and emails. No posts and poor Fan posts means poor Fan engagement and fewer Fans. Fans are not only good for your facebook business, they also help get you indexed by Google.

We know that Fans like coupons and special deals. In Travel, the Special Offers and Travel deals are perhaps the most important shopping criteria. Discounts and packages have led to the skyrocketing success of Online Travel Agents, like Expedia. Price is a market-leader; it is why Google has moved to put rates and costs on local search results for travel.

Special Offers, Coupons, deals, promos and packages are the top search criteria when buying almost anything these day and travel deals are no exception. It is logical to make special offers a big part of your Facebook posting and status update strategy.


But this project is far larger, FanPagePosts beyond Special Offers are a pivotal part of the new AXSES Social Media Marketing plan. Soon we will have fan page post engines for all events, news, reviews, comments and conversation starters.


NEXT - SocialIndexEngine

The project, spearheaded by Kathy-Lynn Ward, COO Of AXSES, called SocialIndexEngine, is a new platform for Social Media that covers Social Media Indexing, Marketing and Maintenance. It includes social media marketing bookmarks, blogs, video, mobiles and SmartphoneTraveller marketing, article marketing as well as social status sites like LinkedIn and Facebook.

It is a very comprehensive solution that is right on the curve of where marketing is heading and slightly ahead of where most small hotels and travel companies perceive. It is also an incremental package, so that Hotels and Tourism, as well as businesses of all types, can start at a place and pace that is comfortable for them. From there, they may add more options as they see results and learn how to use the new media to get more direct business.

We will be unfolding this important platform in stages over the next several months. In this article, we are pleased to share our FanPagePost strategy.

RESOURCES
http://fanpageposts.com/

http://socialindexengine.com/

Bookings and Marketing for your Hotel and Tourism Facebook Page: http://facebook.arcres.biz/

Advertising Your Mobile Travel Site on Facebook

This is a follow-up on our previous discussion on Facebook advertising for hotel and tourism mobile marketing (previous study)

The conclusion is discussed here and illustrated in the video below. 

YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YezSUrhg1rQ

Case 2 - Advertising TravelOnTheGo.mobi to Facebook Desktop users

The study tracked advertising of the AXSES site http://TravelOnTheGo.mobi on Facebook. 

TravelOnTheGo.mobi is home to hotels and tourism operators who are using AXSES SmartphoneTraveller.com marketing Services. This is a comprehensive mobile marketing platform that includes listing hotel and travel mobile-optimized sites on our own TravelOnTheGo.Mobi directory, as well as marketing via the DotMobi distribution. Each client gets a 14-page .Mobi website that includes map location, photo galleries, a booking engine and the ability to add specials and packages.

Call to Action on the Landing Page Essential

The specials and packages are very key to the study. In the first study, we advertised Special offers to Facebook users, but travelers had trouble finding the specials. They had to visit each hotel site and, as several suppliers did not have a special deal or a package, we found that they were getting frustrated and quitting early. 

In the second phase, we added specials to the directory. This means that mobile travelers see the specials being offered right on the first page they visited. Facebook desktop users who click the ad see the same.

High Interest from Facebook Fans

The results were tracked using Clicky and showed a marked interest. Visitors stayed on average over 2 minutes on the site and visited several pages. They went directly to the suppliers' offers and even chose to look at options using the booking engine. 

The cost of the ad was on average .19 cents per click (CPC). The campaign resulted in just under 1 million impressions and 330 Clicks to the target websites. The Click-Through Rate (CTR) was 0.037%

 








Comparison with Google AdWords to Mobile Users

By contrast, a campaign on Google's AdWords had an average stay of under 30 seconds and many visited no pages. This was not a split test, as the format and wording of the ad were different. The target was similar, but it was limited to Smartphone users. The ad had good CTR and comparable costs. We expected that by targeting Smartphone users, the length of stay and activity on the site would have been better. In that respect Google Adwords under preformed where Facebook exceeded expectations. We will review and explore this in a following case study.

Conclusion

Facebook clearly attracts attention and gets qualified traffic, (i.e.: consumers who have an interest and stay on the site). We know that this works for traditional websites (see first test) and for mobile websites, even when the mobile site is viewed on a desktop!

Facebook Ads, unlike Google and the Search ads, do not target people who are actually searching for a product or service. This does not mean that the Facebook visitors are not interested in buying, but only that they have not got to your site by searching for your product or service.

The Facebook visitor is interested in your product and service and may well want to buy it, but we suspect that the decision to book will not be immediate in most cases (two of the visitors in this time span actually contacted the hotel directly). 

Most travel shopping is a long process where travelers will visit 25 sites on average.

Converting Travel Shoppers is a complex issue but we know that offering rate guarantees is a vital feature.

Special and packages do entice buyers, but it may be important to also say that it is the best price. Without this, travel shoppers tend to look around and may drop off the radar.

Keeping your hotel in front of the traveler is where Facebook can be very important, especially if you engage them with interesting stories of happenings, offer Best Rates to Fans, and get them to be your Fan.

Fans are good prospects for your service and you can keep in contact with them throughout the Facebook pages.

All research shows that Fans like to stay within the Facebook setting.

Mobile is Significant in Travel Research and Planning

Mobile users are 100% connected most of the time. Those with smartphones are browsing the net to plan shopping and travel (smartphone devices are the fastest-growing sector, accounting for about 25% of all mobile and expected to be near 50% in 2012). Currently about 34% of smartphone users use the device for travel shopping.

For more on this, read our FREE Mobile Travel White Paper at http://arcres.com/smartphonetraveller-whitepaper-download.cfm

Recommendation

Hotels and tourism companies need to be seen on mobile searches and have a mobile-optimized website in order to feature in this market.

Hotels and tourism suppliers should have Fan Pages and encourage guests and potential guests to become Fans. Travel companies should add "Like" buttons to all mobile web pages.

We recommend that Hotels and Tourism operators add Special Rates, quotes and bookings directly to their Fan Pages. 

Fan pages should have all of your rooms, products and the best pictures right on the pages where Fans might make a booking.

Advertising should contain a mix that includes Facebook. We see Facebook as having long-term benefits. For marketing, it has targeting and engagement benefits not available on other platforms.

Keep Tuned in on Insights, Developments and Case Studies

Google AdWords allows you to target your ads to smartphone users, and this is a distinct benefit. We will be looking at this channel of advertising in a future case study - To keep tuned in - please follow us

arcResBookings Fan Pages Builder and Facebook Bookings 

We invite you to a no-obligation Free trial - go to http://facebook.arcres.biz

• TravelOnTheGo.mobi directory listing
• dotMobi publishing to 1000s of directories
• Your hotel special promotions displayed on networks of 100s of travel sites
• iPhone and Android application
• Advertised on the Internet and direct to mobiles/smartphones
• 14-Page mobile-optimized website; get more "Direct Bookings"
•  

Related links 

Advertising Travel with Facebook see
http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.com/2011/04/facebook-travel-ads.html

Google latest study show Smartphone users searching on mobile: " Make sure you can be found via mobile search as consumers regularly use their phones to find and act on information"   see this study at http://googlemobileads.blogspot.com/2011/04/smartphone-user-study-shows-mobile.html