The document is a proposal from Gloria Zhu for Facebook's Small & Medium Business team. It includes Gloria's perspectives on SMB challenges, goals for engaging existing and new SMBs on Facebook, and suggestions to help SMBs leverage Facebook more effectively through advertising, community building, and education. The key goals are to get existing SMBs more involved by improving profile quality and advertising spend, and to get every SMB on Facebook by addressing barriers to creating pages.
4. The Small & Medium Business team contributes […] by connecting every small business in the world with their customers on Facebook […] and then helping them grow through solutions like Pages and advertising.
“Facebook’s mission is to make the world more open and connected.”
5. Advertising
•Targeted (to goals, industry & customer)
•People-based marketing
•Strong desktop & mobile presence1
•Predictable reach
•Flexible
Facebook Pages & Advertising is the most robustway to gain, retain and interact with your own community of customers
11.32 billion MAU and 1.07 billion mobile MAU as of June 30, 2014
Pages
•Full control of branding
•Directly interact w/ customers
•Dynamic content: images, video, links, status updates
7. Small and Medium-size Business Owners around the world are entrepreneurs that need as many qualityresources & tools as there are in Silicon Valley
United States
Top Countries On Facebook2
23M SMBs3| 12M no website4| 4M user acquisition marketing4| 9.5M use CRM4
India
50M SMEs5| Only <5% of SMEs have website6
Brazil
6.3M SMEs7
United Kingdom
4.9M SMEs8
Canada
2.4M SMEs9
*Definition of SMB varies by country
8. MyTime
-Marketplace
-SMBs Online Presence
-Marketing
-Retention Tools
-Reviews
Facebook
-Better Tracking
-Predictable Marketing
-Interaction w/ Clients
-Community
-Marketplace
-Retention
-Reviews
Nudgit
-Marketplace
-Increase SMB Knowledge of Competition(prices)
-Interaction w/ Clients for feedback
Facebook can tackle the challenges Nudgit& MyTimehave been trying to solve…and more
9. •The Road to Predictable Results (Atlas)
•Helping marketers reach real people across devices, platforms and publishers
•Quantifiable goals for each ad: merchants have a better way to measure expectations
•Ads are goal specific and highly targeted
•Strong mobile presence & location-based tools
•Newsfeed is a go-to for news & discovery
•"Buy" Button
•Social ecommerce
•A new call to action
•More inventory analytics for SMBs
Facebook Features That Gloria is Excited About
11. •Size of Segment: 30 Million Active SMBs on Facebook 10+ Non-Active SMBs on Facebook
•Why is this Important?
MyTimeMade Me Aware of the High-turnover Rate for SMBs: 70% firms survive at least 2 years, 50% at least 5 years, 33% at least 10 years, and 25% stay in business 15 years or more11
An Accurate Database Strengthens Facebook’s Reputation as a Trusted ResourceFor Consumers
•Questions to Get Started
•How many merchants have not updated their information in over 6 months?
•How many profiles are fake/duplicates?
•What percentage of profiles are completed?
•Breakdown of what information is missing from profiles to find drop-off
•How often do merchants post? Is there a drop off or churn rate?
•Identify if there is a pattern between incompleteness and industry or SMB size
•Sit down with merchants and watch them go through sign up and updating flow
Goal #1: Get Existing Facebook Businesses More Involved
A. Improve Page Profile Quality
12. •Size of Segment: -1+ Million to Increase Advertising Spend
-29 Million Businesses to Begin Advertising (30 Mil Active –1 Mil Advertising)
•Why is this Important?
Increase Revenue for Facebook & SMB | Utilization of Advertising Feature Provides Value for SMBs
•Questions to Get Started
•Why do SMBs not purchase advertisements?
•Speak with sales for common rejections
•Are there features Facebook does not yet provide?
•How can Facebook demonstrate value better?
•Do SMBs think they do not have enough marketing budget to spend?
•What other marketing are they using instead?
•What encouraged businesses that are advertising to pay? What caused them to pause?
•What is the breakdown of how much a merchant pays?
•Identify if there is a pattern between advertising spend, industry, SMB size
•Is there someway we can convince SMBs to increase the advertising budget when they are in the process of creating the advertisement?
Goal #1: Get Existing Facebook Businesses More Involved
B. Increase SMB Spend on Advertising
13. •Predicted Size of Segment: 86.6+ Mill (Total of Top 5 Country SMEs)
•Why is this Important?
SMBs can create their sole online presence | Interaction w/ Customers
•Questions to Get Started
•Why do SMBs not have a Facebook Page?
•no wifior no hardware to create or update information
•don’t believe the customers they serve use FB/social media
•don’t need more clients
•don’t like using the internet
•don’t think they have the time to get started and manage their page
•Who should we target? Who often creates pages—marketing team, owner, employees, intern? Magical Fairies?!
•Are there certain industries that have proportionally fewer Facebook Business Pages than actual businesses?
•Are there certain locations that have proportionally fewer Facebook Business Pages than actual businesses?
Goal #2: Get Every SMB on Facebook
15. •Create webpage on how to brand, connect and consistently update your Facebook
•Dan Levy stated individuals know how to create Pages from personal profiles, but inexperienced SMBs need to learn how to use Facebook as a branding, marketing & selling tool
•Encourage Better Content On Page’s Timeline
•Questions can be more specific to encourage merchants to post more interesting content
•Stock photos gallery for merchants’ status or increase merchants’ use of Instagram [inspiration: StyleSeat]
•Merchants Need a Greater Call to Action to Engage
•Online Appointments or Book Now Button
•Encourage customers to share photos, rate the business, or leave review after a check-in[inspiration: Yelp]
Suggestion #1: Facebook Profile Page
At MyTime, merchants genuinely wanted to improve their profiles, but just didn’t know how…
16. •Give merchants $15 free credit to try Facebook Advertising & Extra $10 to Refer Friend
•After trying it out, they’ll be hooked by how easy it is to use!
•Free money will encourage merchants to self-teach themselves how to use Facebook Ads
•Power of referral marketing is strong in the SMB community
•The Ability to Forecast Better
•Not every business thinks they can afford online ads, but they also don’t realize the potential in gains the could make
•ie. “Martinovicsays she makes $23 for every $1 she spends on the site.”13
Suggestion #2: Advertising
Merchants consistently told me that they were skeptical of companies always trying to sell them things
17. •More Events, Workshops, Online Classes and Partnerships With Government Organizations & Companies
•Bootcampfor Small Businesses Facebook Fit
•Dan Levy said SMBs refer friends afterwards—let’s post the recording for non-attending SMBs!
•There should be a Facebook group/event page for SMBs to collaborate and meet after the fact!
•Increase the Size of the Small and Medium Business Council
•Make SMBs feel like they are a part of the decision making process
•Create Official Groups For Specific Industries, Locations or Goals
•Have each merchant automatically added to a group foster the idea of joining a community
•Encourage SMBs to share thoughts and tips
•Strong moderator presence(maybe even Facebook employee), and spam-free zone
•Provide Insight on Competitors Nearby
•At Nudgit& MyTime, SMBs are always asking if their pricing is reasonable[inspiration: http://www.sba.gov/tools/sizeup]
Suggestion #3: Community & Connectivity, Online & Offline
My first internship was at the Chamber of Commerce at age 14, and I still believe the best way to reach merchants is through community involvement , activities and word-of-mouth.
It is also important to not only have resources, but to have them easily accessible and readily available.
20. Defining SMEs: A Less Imperfect Way of Defining Small and Medium Enterprises in Developing Countries http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2008/9/development%20gibson/09_development_gibson.pdf
