In early August, Meg Faure, founder of
The Baby Sense Company, with
Jeremy Pepper,
a Los Angeles-based social media and public relations consultant, to
see if Faure could up engagement and sales conversions among her
(already sizable) Facebook and Twitter communities.
Faure is the international bestselling author of
Baby Sense,
which over the past decade has expanded into a franchise that includes
several more books, a seminar series and an ecommerce business that
spans three continents. Faure and her company are a natural fit for
social media: In her home country of South Africa especially, she is a
well-recognized expert on child care, and the company's Facebook page
and Twitter account are peppered with questions from concerned parents.
With a modest marketing budget (less than $500 a month), Baby Sense had
amassed more than 31,000 fans on Facebook and 2,400 followers on Twitter
as of early August.
At that time, Faure said she was pleased with the engagement her
company receives on social media, particularly on Facebook. With about
four times the number of subscribers as her email newsletter, she feels
it's the best way to get the word out about new products and events.
Faure's also finding ways to monetize her presence on those platforms by
mixing sponsors, including Johnson & Johnson, into the feed.
But Faure said she would like to use Facebook to generate more sales.
She said she's had some success with Offers, but so far most of her
Facebook marketing budget is spent on promoting posts and getting more
Likes on Baby Sense's page — which ultimately isn't converting to many
sales, she said. Faure was also looking for a tool to help her schedule,
manage and respond to posts. In addition, she had started a Pinterest
page but wasn't sure how to optimize her presence there, and wondered if
she should even be on Pinterest in the first place.
The Plan
After an introductory phone briefing, Pepper devised a social media
strategy to help Baby Sense achieve its aims, giving consideration to
Faure's advertising budget and limited spare time. The primarily goal
was to help grow the company's online community, seeking out possible
paid sponsorship opportunities. Pepper's strategy primarily focused on
Facebook, where Baby Sense's community is already strongest.
First off, Pepper suggested that Faure develop an editorial calendar
and schedule for Facebook and Twitter. That way she could plan and
promote events and products, and the community would know when to tune
in. He suggested using an app
like Buffer to schedule posts.
Pepper also advised a change to Baby Sense's editorial tone — one
that was more "Mom to Mom" and less corporate. He suggested Faure write
lengthier posts, between 200-300 characters, with a call to action such
as: tell us your story, or tell us if you agree with this statement. He
added that Faure should spend more time reading and responding to
comments on both Facebook and Twitter. In addition, she should be
cross-promoting the content she posts on Facebook to Twitter and to her
newsletter, and vice versa, creating a more holistic community, and more
touch points, for fans.
One Month Later
We touched based with Faure and Pepper last week to see how Baby
Sense was progressing on social media following last month's briefing.
Faure admitted she wasn't able to tackle all of Pepper's
recommendations — finding time to execute all she wanted remained, as
ever, difficult — but she did incorporate several, with mostly positive
results.
First, Faure downloaded the free version of
Buffer,
which allowed her to both schedule posts and better monitor incoming
messages on social media. As a result, she was able to plan and space
out the content she posted, and more effectively respond to questions
posed to her by fans. Facebook posts were longer, in the 200-300
character range, and got a greater level of response. A one-hour Q&A
session hosted on Facebook on Aug. 22 and Twitter on Sept. 5 engaged a
healthy number of followers, especially on Facebook. She was also
pleased with the amount of mentions at retweets her account received
when she live-tweeted information being given by doctors and other
professionals at seminars.
Overall, Faure said she "definitely saw more engagement" on Facebook
and Twitter over the month. On Facebook, she said there are usually 700
people talking about her page, as reported by Facebook Insights. Since
speaking with Pepper, she saw engagement go as high as 1,300 people. The
average reach of individual Facebook posts also increased, she said.
Despite increased engagement, she saw about the same amount of growth in
followers on Facebook and Twitter — for the former, about 70 new likes
per day.
One thing Faure didn't see improvement on was sales — neither of the
products she carries on her website, nor of tickets to her seminars. She
isn't sure if that's because she still isn't using Facebook and Twitter
as effectively as she could, or if those platforms simply aren't
effective sales drivers. Still, she said, it drives brand allegiance —
and that's "the ultimate goal we have."
Faure said she plans to continue to use Buffer and to incorporate
Pepper's other suggestions. She also noticed that links to informational
articles resulted in a much greater degree of engagement on Twitter
especially, and so she plans to focus on more of that kind of content
over direct promotions there. Faure is also planning to livestream her
next seminar, which she expects will generate a great deal of
cross-platform engagement.
Facebook tweaked
its privacy settings Thursday and will no longer allow users to
completely hide from others searching for them on the site. In other
words, with few exceptions, we're all now searchable on Facebook.
During the week, we consume words in snackable, tweetable bites. But
on the weekends, we have the time to take a dive into the murkier,
lengthier depths of the Internet and expand our attention spans beyond
140 characters. We can brew a cup of coffee and lie back with our iPads,
laptops, smartphones and Kindles.
The recent history of mobile computing has shown that once a couple
of platforms establish a firm foothold, namely Apple’s iOS and Android,
it’s pretty hard for a new player to break into the race. 
Internet giants Google and Facebook once again said they want to be more transparent regarding their dealings with the most secretive court in the United States.
Facebook will begin testing a new mobile feature Thursday that plays videos automatically as users scroll through their News Feeds. The videos will begin playing as they come into view on the screen, and users can preview them within the News Feed without clicking on or opening them. 
