10 practical tips for Facebook fan pages

Carnet Williams
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Social Media Posted on August 18, 2009

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2. Provide fresh content
Many people don't realize that they can keep their Facebook fan pages up-to-date by including RSS feeds and other forms of dynamic content. On our company page, we added a series of widgets that include our blog, Twitter feed, and press releases. Depending on your business, you can also include a video widget with your YouTube channel, a photo widget using your Flickr feed, etc. All this content is updated live, as new content is added to the feeds, without us having to touch the page. It's great to know that the page will always be up-to-date for our fans, and it's great to not have to update every page where we display our content.

3. Give your audience a reason to become a fan
I think it's fair to say that loyal fans like to be treated differently than regular customers. They want to be treated like insiders. They want to know about sales in advance and get access to exclusive information and special discounts. A Facebook fan page is the perfect place to reward fans because they have specifically chosen to associate themselves with your brand in front of all their friends. In the offline world, this is equivalent to putting a bumper sticker on their car.

A great example of a company that uses its Facebook Page to reward fans is surf apparel maker Hurley. Last week the company webcast a surfing event live on Facebook only for fans. Providing exclusive content makes your fans feel special and informed, which is crucial to retention.

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Offers King February 1, 2011 at 5:12 AM

Excellent tips.. Nice. A Facebook fan page is a great way to promote businesses and essentially anything for which you want to build an audience.

http://www.fourpxdirectory.com

Offers King September 16, 2010 at 8:11 AM

I've been into online social networking since 2001, so I've been very active on Facebook and Twitter. If you've seen my personal Facebook page, you'll know that it's quite lively.

http://www.offersking.com/

Michael Shurr September 9, 2010 at 7:37 PM

thanks for the invitation

alex mike September 7, 2009 at 7:34 PM

Facebook has 250 million users. Twitter has 40 million. The potential for your audience on Facebook is clearly much bigger and in a way it's easier to find your target. The Fan Page allows you to add your own apps. We plan on creating a ‘box' on fan page which can list latest shows and their comments. On top of custom boxes you can also use the discussion board, this can allow you to get closer to your fan base without having to create custom forums.

T

Carlo St. Juste Jr September 3, 2009 at 1:47 AM

I am really at limbo with the on line social marketing idea. I believe it sounds like a great thing. Everyone is flooding to face book and twitter because it seems to be a viable tool for business owners. However in society we always have the tendency to over do it, so when is too much too much? This doesn't just seem like a craze or a trend.

Carlo
www.thenaturaldirect.com

jean dyer September 2, 2009 at 12:56 AM

I agree with Robert Linger, These are great suggestions for engaing fans then escalating that enthusiasm and interaction into financial benefits for a brand.
Whether or not the brand was previously successful does not detract from the fact that fans influence the growth of a brands reach .

robert linger September 1, 2009 at 11:00 AM

Drinking the Kool-Aid or not, what IS clear - socially engaged companies are connecting with existing customers and new prospects in ways that enhance brand awareness, yield customer relationship benefits and provide useful research insights into consumer interests. It's hard to argue that these things don't have a positive impact on the financial success of these companies.
Before you dismiss social engagement as a component of the financial success of these companies, how do you come down on the value of traditional marketing and research designed to do exactly the same things...

christine hagel August 20, 2009 at 6:13 PM

great article but what about B2B. I'm not sure that these principals would still apply.

Carnet Williams August 19, 2009 at 12:38 PM

Hi. Thanks for all the comments. To clarify, I didn't write the quote in Kathryn's comment. That is from the engagementdb report that got a lot of buzz in July. In the report the researchers find a correlation between social engagement and financial success. They go on to say that brands shouldn't dive in whole hog but rather find what works for them and start slowly, as needed. The intention of my article is to provide practical tips for brands who want to test the waters with Facebook Fan Pages. Hope this clarifies. Thank you!

Kip Edwardson August 19, 2009 at 10:14 AM

I agree with Kathryn. I stopped reading after that paragraph. Cause and effect....you are drinking the Kool-Aid if you think social media engagement drives financial performance at those companies. They were successful long before Facebook and MySpace. You can't seriously believe what you wrote.

Kathryn Klein August 18, 2009 at 11:37 AM

"the most valuable brands in the world are experiencing a direct correlation between top financial performance and deep social media engagement... Socially engaged companies are in fact more financially successful."

The question I have is whether the social engagement is driving success or whether success is simply making more social engagement affordable for these top brands moreso than to others, with less budget to spread around?