Spare me the company Facebook fan page
I just got yet another invitation to join a company’s Facebook “fan” page. Heavy sigh. Another company Facebook fan page in which they beat their chest with pride at their AMAZING business accomplishments and expect us all to chuckle with fond affection at photos of their zany antics. (OMG, food fight!)
Lots of companies have incredible Facebook
fan pages. I think Starbucks does a great job, integrating much of its marketing efforts with the page . The Humane Society ’s Facebook fan page is jam packed with information. But recently it feels like everyone is trying to take advantage of Facebook without doing any of the work. And there’s no reason for it, plenty of online pundits tell you what makes a great Facebook page. Mashable had a great post earlier in the year on the top five components of a good Facebook fan page, for example. So I’m not going to rehash that information here. Instead, here are a few “Wax Don’ts” if you want to avoid annoying your customers and friends (or me) on Facebook.
1. Don’t put a Facebook fan page up just to have a “presence” or because you think you “should.” We already went through this with blogs. Companies wasted a huge amount of time figuring out what it should look like, who would be the “owner”, where it would sit on the site, etc. Then when it came time to actually keep it going the employees who volunteered to post suddenly became too busy.
2. Don’t just throw content up there when you think of it. Plan editorial guidelines for your page. Decide the categories of information you’re going to post – what will make it on the page, who will post it and when it will get posted. Unless this page is strictly for your employees (which is an okay idea) most of your fans won’t care about a party that happened a month ago and you’re just getting around to posting the photos.
3. Don’t get surprised by negative comments. Remembercomments are public and on the permanent record. Are you sure you want anyone posting things on your Facebook page? Years ago Yahoo chatrooms showed us what can happen when ex-employees start trashing their former employers publicly. If you’re going to have a public forum make sure you know how you will deal with potentially negative comments BEFORE they happen.
4. Don’t just tell us about your company. Provide us with CONTENT. As in all media, especially the social kind, content is king. You won’t gain fans unless you have something interesting to report or you’ve found NEW news that has to do with your industry or business. You can add in your own company news, such as links to articles or press releases, on a regular basis just don’t make this a duplicate of your press page on your website.
5. Finally, don’t invite all your contacts to be a fan until you really have something to be a fan OF. A new page with a post or two of company information doesn’t really thrill me. And this is not a place to just re-post your blog postings either, no matter how great it is for SEO.
In case you were wonder, there is a Waxmarketing Facebook page. But it’s only there for search optimization. I really don’t think you care that today, I’m still in my pajamas eating oatmeal at 10:30 am.
Tags: Blogging, Facebook, Facebookfanpage, Mashable, online pr, Public Relations, SEO, social media
August 17th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Amen! Great post.
Reminds me of early websites, when everyone included a “make this your homepage” popup window. Brands so often make the mistake of wanting to be the center of a consumer’s universe.
Facebook pages, like other social media, need to provide value to their users. That’s what true engagement is all about.
August 20th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Totally agree. Social media, like other forms of PR, etc., have to be made to work. Just throwing a page out there and expecting magic is lazy.
August 21st, 2009 at 11:17 am
Thanks for the comment SocraticGadfly! We need more existentialist secularist comments!
August 30th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Nice post filled with basic information about the pro and cons of starting a Facebook Fan page. I’d argue that companies need to start thinking of their social media image now in the same way that they needed to build Web sites 10 years ago. While there is no need to post content immediately, I would suggest grabbing the necessary domain names on Twitter and Facebook.
August 30th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
That’s a great point about grabbing the domain names Tony!
November 12th, 2009 at 12:36 am
Facebook Fan Pages is one of the effective way to interact with your brands user and let other people know more about your brands and product and also keep then update with latest news. Nice info. Thanks
March 6th, 2010 at 9:06 pm
Great info, and thanks for the link to the Mashable post. We have a facebook business page but aren’t making it public until it has some useful content on there.