Find the Right Voice for your Facebook Fan Page
How you present yourself on your Facebook brand page can build credibility with potential buyers. Facebook also allows you to sponsor posts and run advertisements with unlimited reach and incredible customization.
Advertising on Facebook Has a Completely Different Strategy
Just as Google Ads will get your message to “just the right person at just the right time,” Facebook too provides similar tools to customize your message and target specific segments.
Just a couple of examples of how you can advertise on Facebook:
A. You can boost posts that you put on your Brand page feed so that they are
- Seen by most or all of your fan community
- Seen by potential customers or potential followers that you select base
- Seen strictly by non followers for the purpose of promoting your fan community (or a promotion for your company)
B. You can also run ads that promote your actual site or products that are sold off of the Facebook platform. With this option you don’t necessarily have to have a Facebook brand page to advertise on Facebook.
Understanding how to message the person who will be viewing the promoted post or ad is very important, as different goals require different messaging. Building followers for your fan page is a very different goal than getting Facebook users to convert to customers for your business through a website that is distinct from Facebook.
Don’t Forget about Instagram
Instagram is a very popular platform that companies can use to get strong visual advertisements in front of users that also can be segmented by interests, demographics, and geographics.
Interacting in a Candid and Intimate Way with Your Followers and Managing Your Brand Identity
It is hard for us to overstate the importance of the voice to use when posting and how to interact with your followers so that you are creating value for them in exchange for their following you. Some companies put their brand on Facebook hoping that being merely being present on Facebook will be enough to gain followers. If you are not a brand that “excites” loyalty and is part of the user’s identity (think Tiffany, American Apparel, or Harley Davidson), then you probably should be creative in setting up your FB fan page.
What if My Company is a Very Utilitarian Product?
We have helped companies in such industries as plumbing, pest control, and solar energy create and manage their Facebook page.
We have found it helpful for some of our clients to identify an “expert” that can represent the brand by being a personality. This expert is a “brand representative” who can offer advice and have a dialogue with fans of the Facebook page. It can be a principal person at the company or an industry aficianado.
Another interesting approach is utilized by Bank of America’s popular “Building Opportunity” Facebook/Twitter campaign. This institution is obviously uniquely positioned and this approach probably won’t work for many. Still, in this current period of unrest and hard feelings toward banks, this concept has been embraced by a decent sized following.
Posting Useful Communications
Following this concept of intimacy, we stress to our clients that in the social media realm useful information is very important. It is a common social networking faux pas to post updates that feature promotional content that was created with the intention of persuading the undecided potential buyer. In short, people don’t spend their free time on social networking sites to read advertisements.
We have found that it is good to use the FB Fan Page to offer advice or special promotions to the followers. This benefits the followers and might also motivate them to share the content with their online network.
Appropriate Frequency of Messaging
Every brand and unique approach to Facebook Fan Pages will probably warrant a unique frequency of messaging. Some Facebook fan pages that our team follows can be too “busy” and clog our feed; others will lay dormant for days or weeks between postings. We all agree that it is much more likely that a user will “un-like” a fan page that “overposts” than one that “under-posts.” There could almost be a psychological phenomenon that makes gives posts a little more perceived value or “weight” when it comes from FB Fan Pages that post rarely post.
There are many excellent tools (like www.hootesuite.com) that can be used to schedule Facebook messages to go out at predetermined times in the future.
Should be Tied in With other Social Platforms
Facebook works great with youtube, and we recommend using video to communicate with your Facebook fans.
Also, why wouldn’t you want to also publish your Facebook messages to your Twitter account? In almost all cases this is a no-brainer. The more content you are feeding through your various channels the more followers and potential customers will see your posts. We recommend feeding the Facebook posts to Twitter, but not vice versa. There is a hierarchy of importance and frequency with which you post on each platform, and twitter is appropriate for many more posts per day than Facebook, so it is perfect to have a Facebook post integrated into the twitter feed, but would not be appropriate for every tweet to be posted on Facebook.
Customization of Facebook Page
We are a little wary of the trend of “tricking out” your Facebook Fan Page too much (like the old MySpace pages). In recent years, Facebook has greatly restricted the amount that fan page managers can customize the appearance of their site. A basic “splash page” when you land on the page for the first time (ie if you are not a “fan”) can be great, and we recommend allowing Facebook users to access the content and see the “wall” without officially “liking” the page and becoming a fan.
H.I.M. Can Help
Managing a Facebook Fan Page can be fun but keeping it regularly updated can be daunting. Setting a Facebook page up correctly can be confusing as well, as there are many permanent decisions that have to be made correctly. Fill out the form to discuss what might be the best way to set up your product or service on Facebook.