• by Reggie Bradford , September 18, 2009

Our recently completed study that found click-through rates on Facebook wall posts to be 6.49% is incredibly powerful information as it illustrates that social media are delivering dramatically higher levels than all other online media. Teens (ages 13-17) represented 40% of the audience of brand pages measured. Quantcast also cites that teens make up 28% of Facebook traffic. With this kind of traction, marketers need an aggressive and strategic Facebook wall post strategy to engage teens.

Our peer influences affect us each of us every day, and the social currency we build is powerful. This week, Facebook announced 300 million users and, earlier this year, Nielsen found social networking to be more popular than email while comScore reported users, on average, spend more than 169 minutes per month on Facebook. With such a massive and engaged audience, marketers are thinking of social media not as a one-off campaign but as an overall experience, not an experiment anymore but a 24/7 presence.

For marketers, building brand affinity with teens is key as it creates long-term customers. So as teens spend more and more time on Facebook, marketers need the strategies and tools to reach them.

With teens back in school this fall, marketers need to be thinking of Facebook as they do other traditional marketing media and utilize the tried-and-true principles of dayparting, segmentation and frequency. With any medium, understanding your demo is key and knowing their lifestyle and media consumption creates effective strategies.

So as teens shift their schedules from being around all summer to more specific windows of time on Facebook, marketers need to also adjust their outreach. Putting it in context, I wanted to look at a few powerhouse brands.

For McDonald's providing offers that are sequential to students' schedules is important. For example, getting off practice or the school bus would be a great time to message snack options to tide them over or to reinforce a new product offering to put in their consideration set for dinner.

They should also know that teen usage may pick up on the weekends so offers and content should be pushed at a higher frequency. Although marketers are not always able to be on Facebook to manually push their strategy 24/7, their brand needs to be. The market now provides tools that automate scheduling on Facebook, and marketers need to find the resources to have a robust and consistent presence.

Looking at JCPenney's JCP Teen, we see its post strategy being shaped by time of day, wherein the majority of posts are being executed between 5 and 7 p.m., a great example of reaching teens on their time.

Social media should be approached strategically so each effort is tied to driving for higher retention and participation. Marketers need the tools and the know-how to tap into the power of the Facebook platform as their approach needs to be continually optimized.

Reaching and engaging teens here is critical as they will become your advocates for life. So learn how to speak to them and appeal to them and adjust your offerings based on seasonality and time of day.