Question

Topic: Social Media

Help With Monetising Our 1.4 Million - Fan Cat Page

Posted by crostons on 11/8/2016 at 10:06 AM ET 125 Points
Here's the situation in brief:

- I have a Facebook 'fan' page featuring 7 cats. We have 1.4m followers - chiefly in the Middle East but most actively in North America and the UK.

- We're one of the largest cat pages in the world

- Our profile is high and was boosted in the UK by a recent BBC prime-time feature on 'Anne Robinson's Pet Secrets'

- we do a 4-nights-a-week live webcast featuring the cats, product reviews and light-hearted banter. These attract 8-10,000 views per show generating about 500+ user comments each

- we are well known amongst cat product manufacturers and receive a fairly constant stream of products (some worth hundreds of pounds) to review

So our profile is high and growing. The fans are fairly voracious for new content.

This has always been a hobby but, given the amount of work there is in running the site, shooting photos, editing video, presenting and recording shows etc etc (my fiancee works on the site 10 hours a day) I think it's time the enterprise pulled its weight financially.

My IDEAL solution would be to find a sponsor for the 4-nights-a-week webcast. It would be neat, with easily definable benefits for a sponsor and, given the potential audience - ripe to extend beyond Facebook.

Who do I ask? Where do I go?

I currently work in quite a senior job in corporate TV so I understand production and audience metrics but this specific area is a bit of a mystery to me.

Any advice gratefully accepted!

Cheers

Steven


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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 11/8/2016 at 10:33 AM Member
    Why not put an advertisement in your social stream for partners/sponsors?
  • Posted by crostons on 11/8/2016 at 10:37 AM Author
    Thanks, Jay. Nice idea but it feels a bit passive. I'd be more interested in discovering the right people to approach and then targeting them with a clearly defined pitch.
  • Posted by mgoodman on 11/8/2016 at 12:21 PM Moderator
    Your situation calls for a business/marketing plan you can follow (and modify, if necessary). You need to define what the goal is in concrete terms -- how much, how soon? Then you need to develop that plan to determine what resources (time, effort, people, money) will be required to reach the goal.

    If the required resources are more than you're prepared to invest, then you'll need to either change the goal or find another approach that fits your risk profile better (or some of each).

    If you approach this with a "random walk," you'll never know what's working and what isn't, or whether you are actually approaching your goal. Worse yet, you may find that you will have invested a lot of time, money and emotional energy in a business proposition that isn't what you expected or wanted.

    I've been through this drill with many clients, and I can tell you that the disciplined planning approach is the only one that will deliver the result you want.

    If you want to learn more, MarketingProfs has a seminar that you might find helpful: https://www.marketingprofs.com/marketing/online-seminars/110
  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 11/9/2016 at 7:54 PM Accepted
    There are several ways to monetize your stream:

    1. Amazon affiliate links connected to the products you review.
    2. Offering subscriptions for premium content.
    3. Adsense and banner ads on specific webpages that you drive traffic to via your FB stream.
    4. Sponsorships.
    5. E-mail marketing.

    For #5, you really need to consider collecting names and e-mail addresses, either through the Facebook stream, or via a simple landing page. This list then becomes your asset.

    You'd do well to drive people FROM Facebook to a landing page or website and create your list there. You then use the site to build a greater sense of community. Doing this also gives you more control over your community: one false move on your part that results in Facebook shutting you down and you lose that community.

    For sponsorships, create a simple, one page outline of your stream. Include links, statistics, and audience profiles. Then approach per food companies and offer exposure for specific brands to your community of 1.4 million people on a CPM or CTA basis through links that you control.
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