We’ve all experienced it, all those annoying updates from Facebook pages you’ve fan’d, which have likely resulted in a ‘remove me from fans’ or ‘unsubscribe’ action on your part. If you have a Facebook Business page don’t ruin all your efforts by annoying your fans to death. Be smart about marketing your business on this 250 million plus user site.
While updates are great ways to share your message with your fans, many are utilizing the ‘update all fans’ option in lieu of proper communication with fans in a less obtrusive manner during their social media marketing. Proper utilization of your Facebook Business page is required if you want to keep your fans, and lessen the annoyance factor. Below are a list of several suggestions, or dare I say rules, for Facebook Business page etiquette and best practices.
Updates
Proper use of updates is mandatory. There is nothing worse than getting a ton of Inbox messages, getting your hopes up that you are all of a sudden popular, only to find out they are from the "Not Having George Bush As President" fan page, "Walking the Wrong Way on Escalators" or "Becoming a Fan" fan pages you forgot you fan’d. If you manage a Facebook Page, use the status function in lieu of updating all your fans. Now, that’s not to say the update all fans function can’t ever be used….just save it for those all important updates, and try your hardest to fit everything important on one update.
Provide Worthwhile Information
While you might think it’s interesting that your businesses employees just had pizza for lunch, your fans likely don’t need to know that information. Stick to the interesting stuff, and provide them with something that will benefit them in some way. Answering an industry question, providing a great resource for information, offering advice, and not always providing self serving messages/links are a surefire way to keep your current fan base. Worth noting: don’t get annoying with the information either. Get creative, interact with your fans, and don’t just regurgitate old information. Stay current!
Optimize Your Page For Better Usability
Dual purpose here: to help users navigate your page more efficiently and also to provide a way to use your page more efficiently for business purposes. Pick out a vanity URL for your Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/username. Further customization: Did you know that you can add widgets and HTML code to your Facebook page? In a few easy steps you are able to do so, and add a touch of creativity to your page. Create a way to have your fans interact more regularly on your page, and get them to your website more often by utilizing the HTML and widget functionalities. Plain pages will have a hard time getting massive fans, so adding some actual functionality will help.
Fill Out Your Profile
Some fan page administrators do not take the time to properly fill out their bio, info, and other information that lead viewers to your website. Isn’t that the overall point—to inform viewers what you offer in a succinct and proper way? Use this space to appeal to your direct demographic, and don’t just copy and paste content from your website. Jazz it up a bit; it seriously only takes 5 minutes.
Limit the Controversial
Remember, your Facebook page is a reflection of your business or affiliation. If your bread and butter was built on the fact that you provide a controversial and off the wall message, then by all means continue to do so. But most of us don’t brand ourselves in that way, so continue that thought when managing your Facebook page. There are appropriate ways to be controversial and engage fans, without being offensive.
Determine How Much Interaction You Want Your Fans To Have
Did you know there are options on your Facebook page to allow or disallow fans to post pictures, video, links, messages, etc? If you don’t have the time to continually check up on your page and ensure one of your fans didn’t go all crazy and create a firestorm, disable these features. It’s a simple click of the mouse, and trust me it will save you a lot of time in the long run.
Take Advantage of Page Notes
Using your page’s notes section to write keyword rich content with links is a great idea to 1) build links to your website and 2) inform your fans of upcoming specials, events, and more. It is NOT 1) a way to annoy your fans, 2) post irrelevant information, and 3) go on a rampage.
Add Content!
Add pictures at company events, upload videos, and take advantage of any way to add information to your page. A few things to note: DO NOT put up the picture of your boss drunk at the Christmas party and making a fool. It’s probably a good idea to consult each person in the photo and ask their permission prior to posting and tagging them.
Have anything to add? I’m sure there are a few more rules and best practices that you’d like employed by fan page administrators, we’d love to hear. Oh, and don’t forget: Fan Vertical Measures on Facebook.
Tags: facebook, Facebook etiquette, facebook fan page, Social Media Marketing
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 5:50 am and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 9th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Great post. I was just at an SMO conference and this concept of ‘driftwood,’ ie profiles that were started but abandoned has been being talked about lately. Filling out the profile, identifying your audience, and actually working. Consistently. Is essential here.
October 9th, 2009 at 7:57 am
Great post. I was just at an SMO conference and this concept of ‘driftwood,’ ie profiles that were started but abandoned has been being talked about lately. Filling out the profile, identifying your audience, and actually working. Consistently. Is essential here.
October 26th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Facebook business pages is one of the effective way to keep update users and fans about your brands and services which you are offering. Now every brand needs facebook page to interact with other people and know their views.
October 26th, 2009 at 3:47 am
Facebook business pages is one of the effective way to keep update users and fans about your brands and services which you are offering. Now every brand needs facebook page to interact with other people and know their views.
November 19th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Facebook is slowly taking over the world. It’s scary how you can friend your co-workers on Facebook and then see all of the interesting things they like to do on their free time(bars, drinking, clubs, etc). I feel like I know the lives of people I haven’t talked to or spoken to in years but through status updates we are closer than ever. Who knows what the future will hold.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Facebook is slowly taking over the world. It’s scary how you can friend your co-workers on Facebook and then see all of the interesting things they like to do on their free time(bars, drinking, clubs, etc). I feel like I know the lives of people I haven’t talked to or spoken to in years but through status updates we are closer than ever. Who knows what the future will hold.
December 3rd, 2009 at 12:46 am
I had a problem with your page layout through the most recent release of Opera. Looks good in IE6 and Firefox however.
December 2nd, 2009 at 5:46 pm
I had a problem with your page layout through the most recent release of Opera. Looks good in IE6 and Firefox however.
August 6th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
Is there an easy way to manage many profiles?
February 10th, 2011 at 8:43 am
“Did you know there are options on your Facebook page to allow or disallow fans to post pictures, video, links, messages, etc?” These are some of the little fundamentals I think a lot of people forget about.
June 6th, 2011 at 10:16 pm
Limiting the controversial is very good advice.