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10 practical tips for Facebook fan pages

Carnet Williams
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Social Media Posted on August 18, 2009

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4. Update away -- but put yourself in the fan's shoes
Before you send any update to your fans, you should ask yourself, "Does this update provide value?" If you treat your fans like low-hanging fruit, they will quickly leave you. But if you treat them like an inner-circle of trusted friends, you will keep them happy. Any message to them as a group should express gratitude, friendship, and value. Messages through fan pages appear as updates in the "request section" of the homepage, making them easy to ignore if fans stop looking for them.

Here's a great example of a value-rich message from Hurley.

In addition to expressing gratitude, the company is "giving back" to its fans with exclusive content and special discounts.

5. Be smart with your images
This tip is slightly tricky, but it works. Your profile image and thumbnail image can, and should be, strategic. Look what happens when I do a search for the California Academy of Sciences' fan page.

Because the image is long, it takes up more of the results page and is much easier to find. While the blank space isn't usable, your eye is definitely drawn to it. Your thumbnail image should be your logo, since it travels with every update or post that is sent. When your fans get used to it, they will look for it to differentiate official posts on the fan page from fan posts.

6. Encourage interaction in your posts
Fans want to contribute to discussions, but they sometimes need a little prodding. It's always hard to think of something to say when they're given a blank slate. Get them started by ending your posts with a question back to the community, or include a poll. Often, fans want to contribute but are intimidated and think they need an earth-shattering comment in order to post.

As an example, the Toyota Prius fan page admin continually posts little polls for people to answer. Since it's so easy to respond, many people participate and leave their mark on the page.

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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?