An Open Letter to Facebook Fans Everywhere

Photo by Ambro

Dear Fans,

On behalf of social media managers and Page administrators everywhere, thank you for being a fan! Now that you've clicked "Like," we have one small favor to ask of you: could you please (and we mean pretty please with your preferred delicious product on top) like and comment on posts from Pages in your News Feed? The more you do, the better we can make our Pages for you.

In return we promise to:

• Post more interesting things for you to click on, look at and read!
• Avoid super promotional language (eg "BUY OUR STUFF! CLICK ON ME FOR DISCOUNTS" etc.)
• Avoid spamming your news feed with posts at too-frequent intervals or, on the flipside, have long gaps of several days to several weeks between posts.
• Use your interactions to customize our posting schedule to fit your interests.
• Respond to your comments and wall posts, person to person (not marketer to person, robot to person or any other impersonal combination you can think of.)

You have no idea how happy it makes us to see our Admin Panels light up with notifications that YOU, our beloved fans, have liked and commented on our posts.

Sincerely,

Lauren

The Four Stages of Social Media Engagement

These days, every business has some sort of social media presence - whether they know it or not. Customers and potential consumers want to engage with the brands they are interested in online, and they will often do so regardless of whether or not that brand is willing or able to engage with them. It's in a company's best interest, therefore, to determine which social stage they are at and to become more engaging. Here's what I see as the four D's, or stages, of social media engagement (and no, I know you're thinking it, but they're not the same as the five D's of Dodgeball):

Dead    You have zero social media presence - that you know of. The problem is, you probably have several listings set up by social media users, usually on location-based platforms like Yelp or Foursquare. You probably have some old Places listings or Community Pages on Facebook, or both, and maybe even an impersonator or two on Twitter. The process of cleaning up and taking control of these listings, once you realize they're out there, is tedious and sometimes requires copyright infringement complaints and legal involvement.

Dormant    You, or more likely some intern you had two years ago, set up some social media accounts for you a few years ago, but nobody has posted anything since. Most of your Twitter followers are probably robots, and your Facebook wall is full of spam. You definitely don't have a cover photo on Facebook. You might not have a way to contact your old intern to get login information for these accounts, or to obtain administrative access, so you might have to submit a request to the social networks to force a claim. 

Dabbling    You post maybe once a month and respond to old comments, mentions and other interactions on that schedule as well. When you heard about the Timeline update on Facebook, you posted a cover photo, but you haven't posted since then (has it really been almost a month already?) Your fans are probably frustrated with your slow response rate, and your EdgeRank (the algorithm measure that Facebook uses to determine whether users see your updates or not) is almost nonexistent.

Dynamic    Congratulations! You're active on social media - posting on a regular schedule, keeping your accounts looking sharp and responding to user interactions quickly. You've probably even gone in and filled out your Facebook Timeline with significant milestones. As a result of your consistent approach to posting and community management, users are excited to interact with you and your EdgeRank is excellent.

Wherever you are on this spectrum, the important thing is to recognize it and work towards more dynamic engagement. If you don't have the time, energy or know-how to do so, it's in the best interest of your business to find someone who does. So which social stage describes your business? Is there another step or two you would add? Please let me know in the comments section below. I'd love to hear from you there, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Next Up: A how-to for claiming Places listing, Community Pages and other Facebook Page duplicates.

Why Business Owners Shouldn't Like & Comment on their Facebook Pages (& What They Should Do Instead)

Dear Business Owners - please stop "liking" and commenting on every post on your business page. It's a waste of your time and money and probably isn't doing a thing to drive business or engagement to your page.

Here's why:

1. Unless you're a "thought leader" on Facebook and have a massive following, filling your personal news feed with interactions with your business page isn't creating business for you. In fact, all it's probably doing is annoying your friends and making them hide you from their feeds. When something really exciting happens that you do want to share, they won't see it.
2. If you're paying someone to monitor your social channels, you're wasting their time and your money. When someone interacts with your page, they receive a notification, either via email or through a little icon next to your page name inside Facebook. If they're good at their job, they will go to the page to check out the activity and clear the notification. Nothing is more disappointing for a social media manager than thinking a fan interacted with a page and finding out it was a staff member instead.
3. You're bulking up your Facebook insights with meaningless engagement and skewing your demographic results. Wouldn't you rather know how fans are interacting with your page, who they are and what type of content excites and engages them? If you (and your other staff members) are driving up the "reach" and "talking about this" results with your own likes and comments, it will be harder to track those of your actual fans.

Instead you should:

1. Save the likes and comments for truly exciting and special announcements from your business page, or times when a personal note from the owner or staff are necessary & appropriate. That way your friends might actually see it and not tune it out. If you're a page admin, remember to change your page settings to allow you to post as yourself instead of as the page.
2. Interact with your customers and talk to them personally about Facebook: do they have it and oh by the way they can find you on Facebook!
3. Support your social media staff with the information & budget they need to make your page great: advertising budget, photos, information on your business and current specials & promotions, more photos, the names of your neighbors & partner businesses, and did I mention photos?

Ending the cycle of useless likes and comments and focusing instead on real ways to increase engagement will save you time and money, make Facebook the customer relationship tool you signed up for in the first place, and keep your social media team sane.

As usual, if you have any questions or comments please share them below, or find me on Twitter (@lpmikov).

Debug Your Links for Facebook

Are you trying to link to a webpage on Facebook, but your links aren't pulling the correct title, photo thumbnail or description, or any at all? The friendly folks at developers.facebook.com have a solution for you - Facebook Debugger: https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug

Although the terse description tells you to "Enter a URL to see some helpful feedback about your page markup," the tool actually pulls the info for you as well as debugging the link to pull the correct title, image and description when you put the link in a Facebook post or comment. This will also repair the links when they're posted in scheduling services like Hootsuite.

I discovered this handy tool when Facebook kept pulling old titles and descriptions for one of my clients' websites. I was pulling my hair out trying to update the links - working with the web guys to update the page's back end, checking and re-checking it, but to no avail. Facebook and Hootsuite both kept pulling the old cached version. Thanks to the Debugger, the pages are all updated and I still have all of my hair.

If you have any questions on debugging links for Facebook, or any social media management questions at all, I'd love to hear from you in the comments or via email.

Happy posting!

Lessons to be Learned from the Ocean Marketing Fiasco

Now that the Ocean Marketing fiasco (OceanGate, Ocean Saga, whatever you'd like to call it) has died down, there area few lessons to be learned. I thought most of these could go without saying, but apparently some people still need the reminder. So here they are - the top three lessons that we all can learn from Paul Christoforo and the Ocean Marketing disaster:

1. Civility: Don't swear. Don't demean. Common courtesy goes a long way. Even if someone is rude to you, treat them with respect.
2. Humility: You may be the best thing since sliced bread, but when it comes to customer service, that is irrelevant. If you're so good at your job, you shouldn't have to prove it by name dropping. Know when to put your ego aside and always put your customer's needs first.
3. Contrition: If you screw up, own up. Be genuine. Say you're sorry and mean it - not just because you got caught. 

Above all, practice what you preach. If you claim to specialize in social networking and reputation management, let alone "honesty, integrity and a straightforward expertise" make sure you're representing your clients and your own company in the most positive, professional manner possible.


P.S. Spell check your Twitter handles.

How & Why to Use Facebook's "Share" Feature

Facebook now includes a little blue "Share" link below status updates from pages you like and profiles you subscribe to. Next to the number of people who have liked or commented on a post, you may also see the number of shares from other fans. So what exactly is a share, and why should you share a post?

Using Facebook's share feature for a photo, link or status update posted by a page or public profile allows you to share it with your friends by posting it on your wall or theirs, with a friend via a private message, or on another page that you administrate. Instead of making a comment publicly, sharing a post allows you to comment on it privately and allow your friends to do so as well. If you'd like to promote a particular brand or cause, sharing a post on your wall, a friend's wall or your page's wall can help you spread the word.

Here's how to use the Share feature:

Beneath the post, you'll see the blue "Share" link - click on it.

Choose where you want to share the post - on your profile/timeline, on a friend's, in a private message or on a page that you administrate.

Remember to use the privacy dropdown to select whether you want the post to be Public, Friends only or a custom setting.

Write a message to go with the post (or don't - you don't have to) and then click "Share Link." If you're sharing a link or a photo and you don't want people to know where you found it, you can also click the "Remove" link.

Using "Share" on Facebook is a great way to maintain your privacy on Facebook and share new content with your friends, fans and subscribers.

Happy posting, and as usual please leave a comment or contact me if you have any questions!

Facebook Photo Options for Pages: Pros and Cons

Facebook Page administrators have a few options and things to think about when posting photos, and they each have their pros and cons:

1. Add a group of photos to a new album. Post will appear as "Your Page added six photos to the album Retreats." with a preview of one of the photos. PRO: This uploading method is concise and simple. CON: This method is a lost opportunity for fans to see each of the photos individually. 
2. Add photos individually to an album over time. Post will appear as "Your Page added a photo to the album Retreats" with the photo attached. PRO: Individual exposure to each photo. CON: Each time, all of the comments and "likes" the album has received previously will show up. This can be confusing for some users, as the comments don't correspond to the images. (Because of this, the Disneyland page only uses option #1 when adding groups of photos to an album.)
3. Post photos to the wall. The photos will be automatically added to the album "Wall Photos." The post can any desired text and the photo itself. The text will become the caption of the photo in the album. PRO: Posts can include any text you want and comments and likes are made to the individual photo, not the album. If you don't like the original text you post, you can actually change it on the wall by editing the photo caption in the album. This is the one type of Facebook post that can be edited instead of deleted and re-posted. CON: All photos go to the "Wall Photos" album and must be moved if you want them in specific albums. 

My recommendation is to use option #3: post photos to the wall and then reorganize them to different albums later (without publishing a wall post about it when prompted by Facebook.) 


Another thing to remember is that whenever you post photos, you should decide if they're worthy of being among of the top five featured photos at the top of your wall. These are always pulled from the most recently uploaded photos, but if you don't want a recently uploaded photo to appear up there, you can remove it. 


Happy posting!