It’s Thursday, March 8, and the first day of Affiliate Management Days. I have the pleasure of live blogging the first breakout track session: Affiliate Marketing for Facebook, presented by Marc Phillips of Skumatic.
Here are my major takeaways from this session today:
- Traditional affiliate model and social media affiliate model are extremely different. Affiliate managers need to recognize this difference and realize the social model can reach more potential customers in a faster amount of time. This could lead to higher sales faster than anything else.
- Affiliate marketing and social commerce will go from $3 billion to $30 billion in the next few years, much of which would come from affiliate marketing efforts.
- Facebook ranks #1 in time spent and ad impressions and #2 to Google sites in total internet visits yet only 1% of transactions occur on Facebook today. Why? Likes don’t equal sales!
- Increased sales by moving away from “likes” and moving to “want”, “own” and “love”. This will emerge as Facebook enables “Product Tickers” and “Wishlists”
- Create your commerce platform and purchase options directly on your Facebook page. There is no reason why someone visiting your page should not be able to click “Shop Now” and buy a product right away from that pay. The theology is out there to allow this now.
- There is a smaller number of attributes required within product catalog app on Facebook
- Facebook users expect very high quality images.
- Facebook users want to see products they would use everyday – things around the home, things they’d use at work, things they would use with friends.
- Offers are only available to managed advertising clients. Post is sent through the news feeds of your fans.
- Facebook timeline now increases your main image, but no calls to action, brand images, prices on products are allowed.
- 85% of visitors view above the wall and 12 applications can be showcased – but only 4 of them will be prominent, so choose well.
- Timeline now moves Facebook ads from the right side of pages to the middle section which was previously the newsfeed of posts/friends replies and largely free of advertising.
- Facebook should be on your priority list for 2012 – last year you’ve only been able to reach about 16% of your fans each week.
- Affiliate Marketing will grow exponentially post on Facebook IPO.
- Facebook is going mainstream on advertising with News feeds being targeted more with advertising. This content enrichment is a fertile environment for affiliate marketers.
Ultimately, Facebook is an opportunity for affiliate marketing that cannot be ignored, and with the advancement of new apps, new plug ins and technologies, this opportunity will continue to grow. With close to one billion users now logging in, this leaves an incredible earning opportunity for both merchants and affiliates alike.
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