Overview
Facebook isn’t the end-all and be-all for your social media, but they represent a large chunk of it, and set the foundation for the rest of your efforts. That means you want to have a fan page that puts your business in a professional light, and gets people spreading your message for you, so it seems more natural, and leads to a better conversion rate.
The Claim
North Social claims that they provide simple apps for powerful fan pages. They have an app for a sweepstakes that claims you can be running a contest from your fan page in just a few minutes. They have a deal share app that lets you run a sort of Groupon-style deal right from your fan page that requires a certain amount of people in order to unlock the deal.
They also have an “exclusive” app that let’s them download a file, but only after sharing your page with their friends so that you get a forced viral effect. They have an app that lets you give your visitors an incentive for becoming a fan, which should drastically increase your number of fans, or at least your conversion rate for visitors to fans. They have an app that integrates your YouTube account right into your fan page, making it all look pretty. Lastly, they have a photo app that can double as a store front, with big pictures to display and a Buy Now button to help make sales. There are plenty more apps than this, but these are some of the most impressive.
The Hype
The hype is that this is all about social media, and some say that it’s still not worth the time it takes to keep campaigns going on the various sites. Not every business will benefit from using
The Cost
North Social says that their most popular package is $30 a month, and that gets you access to all of the apps they have, and allows you to have up to 5000 fans. You can do a free trial with them without needing a credit card, and that should give you a good idea of what they can do for you.
The Commitment
A service like this can make it really easy for you to get things set up, but you still need to be the one to do it, or delegate it to your staff, or outsource it to a social media manager. The only true commitment on your part is dedicating yourself to taking social media seriously and trying to do the best you can with it. Many small businesses overlook this powerful tool, and some people still haven’t come to terms with the fact that it’s here now, and likely here to stay.
Evaluation
Making a fan page sticky is hard to do on your own, so it’s a good idea to use something like North Social to skip the step of learning a new skill set, and just start offering things like coupons, contests, videos, downloads, and more. It’s all about providing value to your fans, and making it worth their while to be your fan. Since they already have proven methods in place, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel on this one. Just go with what is already working, and apply it to your products and services.
This lets you not only handle your Facebook page, but also coordinate your Twitter account, your LinkedIn account, your email campaigns, and your website activity all in one interface. This can make it much easier to see at a glance how well you’re doing with each aspect of your promotions. It also gives you analytics so you can track things from week to week, to notice any trends, or spot when things are starting to go viral. This can be invaluable, and compared to not having it, it’s a no-brainer that you at least have to give it a try.
North Social is a pretty powerful platform that can take your fan page from drab to fab in just a few minutes. We like that they give you a free trial so you don’t have to pay to play, and you can get it set up the way you want it to before deciding if you want to pay for the service. Your goal should be to see what sort of return you’re getting and to see if this service can pay for itself.
Our Recommendation
Definitely at least try this out, it’s free and you can connect with Facebook so it only takes seconds to get started. If you like what it does and want to continue on, the price is reasonable for something that can organize and track your different social media campaigns and strategies.
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I don't have the words to adequately describe the hot mess that is North Social. Just last month my client signed up for North Social. When we installed the North Social's sweepstakes app we discovered it doesn't have the ability to schedule the sweepstakes. You can't tell it to turn on and turn off during a specified period of time. You have to manually install the tab and then manually delete the tab. What if you want to start a promotion at midnight and end it at midnight? What if you're out of town? And if you do a sweepstakes every week like two of my clients do - that's a fair amount of work. Furthermore, when the sweepstakes is offline - you don't have the ability to keep a page active to let know folks know to check back for the sweepstakes. There was also no giving Facebook fans bonus entries if they share the sweepstakes on their page and their Facebook friends enter. And better still - their apps were not accessible via smartphones - they could only be accessed via the web. I ran the promotion but asked for a refund as we paid for a month and were only going to use it this 1 day - literally 1 day. Not only did North Social refuse and say we "didn't qualify for a refund", they insisted their product was the best on the market even with these key elements missing and the best part - cancelled our subscription without our knowledge or consent - while we had a promotion running. And has no issue doing so. It was this flippant arrogant oh well. Numerous back and forth emails with a variety of people who all had the same arrogant tone. A friend has also been using them - just yesterday they dramatically increased their prices without so much as a heads up from North Social. She complained on their Facebook page. Her comments were deleted and...she's now banned from the page. This is small business owner and a mother of 2. No F bomb tirade or anything like that. Just hey what's going on - and bam - deleted and banned. This seems to be their thing as ALL negative comments about their product are deleted from the North Social FB page. Go to their page and see for yourself. Only positive comments. Post something negative and watch it either be deleted for hidden as spam. Why would any one want to do business with such a shady company? A better solution that answers all the above things we needed AND was cheaper - was Woobox. If you have any agency - you can call Woobox for an agency discount to extend to your clients. If you're a small business - feel free to comment here and I'm more than happy to pass along the discount. I believe it's 20 or 30% off.
I always wondered how some of the smaller companies or even individuals had so many features on their Facebook page and I think I get what I've been missing all this time. My facebook page looks too bland and boring to attract anyone and that must be one of the reasons why I'm getting the likes so slowly. I provide enough contents, so maybe with north social I can really amp up the features and the design of the fanpage.