Greetings fellow print geeks! I’m sure many of you are fed up with Facebook’s constant changes—I know I am. You’ve spent your time and energy building your FB community, only to see your organic reach decline no matter what you do. According to AdAge, roughly 6% of your fans even saw your posts in February 2014. In other words, your Facebook page isn’t dead because no one loves your brand. Your engagement dropped because no one sees your posts besides a handful of diehards. The outrage!
Clearly there’s a problem here. I wish I knew of an easy solution; alas, abandoning Facebook altogether doesn’t make sense yet. Your customers expect your business to be on the largest social network, and probably use the site to communicate with your staff about their print projects. But that doesn’t mean you have to take this Facebook nonsense lying down. I suggest you do what I’m doing and gradually wean your fans off the book.
The story of the printed pop up social media postcard from Dakota Press
The good news is that while some customers may be stuck in the Facebook mindset, other networks are quickly catching up. And you can use your Facebook page to promote your accounts on other networks in unique ways. For example, my friend Dana from Dakota Press (aka the Bodacious Bison) turned a tweet into a creative way to get more Twitter followers! Best of all, her brilliant plan involved 2 of our favorite things: ink and paper.
Our story begins on Google + where I often discover the best content on the web. Since the plus side is filled with marketing professionals, my stream overflows with awesome curated stuff from the interwebs. I saw a fun tutorial on the Printaholic page about pop up postcards, and sprayed the link across our networks. My tweet got an RT from that beautiful buffalo 2 days later. Nice, I thought, and I went about my day.
Friday Fun 🙂 RT @Printfirm: How to make a pop up postcard: http://t.co/kz8Mcv81bz via @SirPrintsALot
— Dakota Press, Inc. (@DakotaPressInc) January 17, 2014
Little did I know that simple tweet sparked Dana’s ever present creativity.
Two hours passed, and then she tweeted me a little sneak peak of her handiwork that blew me away:
@Printfirm @SirPrintsALot they’re awesome. want to see our quick take? About to post it on over at FB. 😀 pic.twitter.com/v2B1F0XZs9
— Dakota Press, Inc. (@DakotaPressInc) January 17, 2014
After I finished my print geekgasm, I realized what Dana really did—she created a branded postcard to promote the Dakota Press Twitter account across the social sphere! Curious, I asked her how she came up with this stroke of SoMe genius. Here’s her reply:
When I saw your tweet, I was mostly just hanging out on Twitter. I like to scroll through my feed at odd times and just search for interesting information that I can either RT or post to our other social sites. I also like to find things that I can use for later in future projects or information spreading. For instance, I originally saw your tweet on Wednesday, but I liked the idea of making it into a fun weekend project for friends and family activity, so I waited until Friday to post it.
Aha! Just as I suspected, planned spontaneity. Naturally I wondered whether or not she encountered any red tape in the workplace. Did she propose the pop up postcard idea in a marketing meeting or go solo?
Originally I thought I was just going to retweet it and then post something on our Facebook as well. It would have had a similar vibe. (Some Friday Fun, try it out, love print!) But as I looked at it, I had a realization that I should just do the tutorial myself! It made so much sense after that. I did this on my own because I knew how direct it could be and had a clear concept in mind. I decided to keep it simple as far as sticking to our brand of Dakota Press and our lovely buffalo. I used our buffalo logo as the pop up and then wrote a little note about following us on Twitter. I followed the tutorial and it came out a success!
Indeed, Dana. But did you have any goals beyond promoting your oh so awesome Twitter account?
I think the ultimate driving force behind most of our online decisions is the idea that print is accessible and widely used today, even if you don’t realize it. Helping our friends on our social sites come to this realization as well is a big part of our presence. We want them to understand how fun print can be alongside its digital counterpart. My goal was to provide a fun activity that was print based (because that’s our true love) while promoting our Twitter page. Our Twitter page is very active and it has a different set of rules than our Facebook page. If you like what we’re posting on FB, why not check us out on Twitter where you can get a constant stream of action!
Well played.
Katherine Tattersfield fell into online marketing in 2010, and built her career around this dynamic field. She earned her B.A. in Political Science from California State University, Northridge (Summa). When she’s not writing, Katherine enjoys photography, skateboarding, graphic design, and chasing her dog around with her husband.
