Tips on Enhancing your Facebook Fan Page
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Facebook just passed Google as the most popular site in the U.S. Companies such as P&G have mandated a presence for all their brands. Yet for the average start up or small business, the Facebook Fan Page experience leaves a lot to be desired. Adding on apps can be cludgey, not all features work as they should, and the analytics leave a lot to be desired. While improvements are in the works, if you aren’t a big brand, it is nearly impossible to get support from Facebook in these matters.
So here are a few simple tips on making the most of your Facebook Fan Page:
- Set your goal(s)
- Engage existing customers, fans to encourage their interaction with the brand and build deeper brand connections;
- Provide customer service;
- Attract new customers;
- Create awareness of new products, services;
- Drive sales through special offers, coupons
One great example of how a company strengthened brand connections, attracted new fans, and potentially drove sales was how Toys R Us utilized the Facebook platform during the Black Friday shopping season. Toys R Us offered Facebook Fans exclusive previews of their Black Friday sales flyer and then continued to update fans on the availability of popular gifts such as Zhu Zhu Pets.
I was also intrigued by how Ikea used Facebook to run a contest that involved Facebook users tagging showroom photos with their names to win products from the new Ikea store. This contest promoted their new store opening and engaged fans with exploring the showroom and new product offerings.
2. Add Your Blog Feed
Use the Facebook Notes Application or other add-ons such as Social RSS or Involver’s RSS Feed to automatically add your blog posts to your wall. Remember, everything posted to your wall will show up in your fans’ feed (unless they’ve hid you), but if it just goes to a tab or a box, unless fans are checking out your page, they probably won’t see it.
3. Add Your Twitter Feed
While Facebook offers easy options to send your Facebook updates to Twitter, they don’t facilitate the reverse as well. Involver offers a paid app that allows your Twitter updates to automatically update your Facebook status. The free app will update your box or tab, but not the page status (so it won’t show up in the fans’ feed.) Another option is to use Selective Twitter for Pages. This requires some manual effort but allows the person managing your Twitter account to decide what Tweets are Facebook-worthy.
4. Add Other Media
Pictures do say a thousand words and add interest and excitement to your page. So if you are posting to Flickr, YouTube, etc, make sure to cross-post to Facebook. Involver offers some good apps to automate this process and YouTube also allows you to set up your Channel to post to Twitter or Facebook whenever you post a new video.
5. Utilize Facebook Markup Language
Now I’m not a programmer but I was thrilled to learn that FBML (Facebook Markup Language)-based apps were really nothing more than HTML. So you can pretty easily take an HTML page and create a much nicer Facebook page. This is a great option to create a conversion/sign up page to use Facebook as an actual conversion platform. You can even choose to set this as your landing page for non-Fans.
6. Post at Least Once a Week
If you are going to engage, you need to publish regularly. This applies to blogs, tweets, and your Facebook page. If great content can be created and published consistently, you can expect to see about a 10% increase in your fan base every week.
7. Promote Your Page
Add the Become a Fan graphic or Facebook icon link to your newsletter, email signature, blog, website contact page, and other marketing communications. Ask people to join via Twitter, etc. It works, really.
I would love to hear about some of your favorite Fan pages in the comments. Please let me know which pages you actually interact with, as well as brands that you feel have done creative things using Facebook.
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