COMMENTS
10. Tag other Facebook pages simply so you can appear in their stream.
Great Post! Definitely some ideas to take to heart to generate better content. And now off to check out the questions section of Facebook.
Great article. In my experience, the mistake I see most businesses make is not allowing fans to share content (#3). Most of the time, it is because they fear losing control of their brand if they allow people to talk about the company on its Facebook page.
Another common mistake is that some companies spend too much time talking about themselves rather than sharing relevant, interesting content. I think most of these mistakes happen at companies that have not fully embrace or understand the value of social media.
10. No Commitment!
Businesses shouldn't set up Pages just to jump on the bandwagon.
They should be passionate about getting involved in social media and excited about developing new relationships and strengthening existing bonds with the community.
Setting up a Page and then letting it be inactive won't help your company. It's like handing out your email address and saying, "Oh, I don't ever check or respond to my messages. But you should still email me anyway!"
#10 - Don't ever do anything to attract fans to your page, especially new fans. Run fun or interesting promotions once in a while to establish reasons to visit and interact with Facebook pages. Promotions or sweepstakes can have a huge impact on your fan base.
At Fanbooster (a tool for building engaging Facebook tabs for business pages) we always promote the idea of making your page different to your website. I see so many simple duplications of the company home page and it's missing the point completely.
A facebook business page should be the place where you can gauge the reaction of your audience with polls and sweepstakes, video, news that you really want to "push out" to your fans because not everybody checks out the home page every day but we all log into facebook and receive the status updates.
I also think that a page should be designed to the best of abilities. How many times do you see cheap basic pages when the company is huge and this is a bad image reflection
Excellent. I'm neck-deep in an industry that just doesn't get it... which is GREAT for my speaking fees and schedule, but I keep repeating mantras like #9 so much that I talk to myself on the road :) Keep up the great posts. I'm enjoying HubSpot, especially that cool one-take video.
Excellent article... I am guilty of #1 and I will change that today. Thanks Hubspot!
Great blog. Learnt a lot. Will definitely look at my FB pages now.
I can't wait for Facebook Questions to be available to EVERYONE! I need to start focusing on what a fan can gain from purchasing my product rather than sell sell sell. I also need to start commenting more on fan's posts!
This is a GREAT article - very pertinent, new info that many folks are not yet aware of... Thanks for sharing! Great stuff!
#10: Spam all of your friends 20 times a day trying to sell your crap.
Excellent article. Just the for the heads up on the upcoming Facebook Questions app gets Kudos from me.
How about not filling out your INFO tab? I run a small business development Center in rural Arkansas. The other day I pulled 40 small business pages I have "liked" over the past year to look at and believe it or not 6 had actually not filled out anything on the info tab.
In the same review found 8 that had a "spammer" posting on their wall about "work at home moms" making money that the facebook page administrator just let stay on their wall.
Great information. My question is regarding B2B companies. LinkedIn seems far more relevant and FB seems more consumer oriented. Is this true our should B2B companies be using FB as well?
I completely agree, especially with #9. If you don't give yourself a personality then who is going to want to get to know you? Great post, thanks for sharing.
As always, an informative posts with lots of points to take away and work on. Thanks! :-)
Regarding #3, do you think there's any need to include a disclaimer around ownership/responsibility for photos posted online? We haven't enabled user posts yet as we're a bit sensitive to the potential issues around fans posting pictures of children (particularly other people's children) online.
Any thoughts or suggestions? Or are we being overly cautious?
Totally agree with Uncle Waldo, #10 should be spamming people with salesy stuff
The real challenge is to give quality individual attention to fans, subscribers, followers, massively. Good post.
Thanks for providing such a great info.
It is always wise to remember keep in touch with the fans, they greatly appreciate your effort to communicate with them.
I think the biggest mistake can be to simply rely on your brand. Your facebook page HAS to be engaging. If you look at Oreo's page, they have a tab that has recipes so that fans get get baking. It's so simple but so effective!
For a succesful business, I think the most important thing need to do is to find the matching point between customer needs and your expertises.
Posting with Multimedia content really attract non-fans, It is really good point. I am also become fan after watching video-clip on
Facebook.
Thanks everyone for all your awesome comments! You've posted fantastic #10's.
@Lois - As long as you monitor activity on your Facebook page, you can delete any objectionable photos fans upload. Just click on the photo, and click "Remove This Photo" below the image. Think of all the great user generated content you're missing out on by preventing everyone from posting!
@Dave Willcutts - You're right that LinkedIn is definitely more business-based, but B2B companies can definitely have successful Facebook pages. Your fan base might not be as large, but you'll still be sending updates and sparking conversations with a relevant audience. And if you have the budget for it, you can launch a Facebook engagement ad campaign that targets people based on their interest or network.
My number 10 is letting your page languish. If you do not post often or leave your page for a few months, it becomes less and less effective, when you do come back to it you will find that people are not used to seeing it or dont recognise it any more.
Great article. I totally agree with #1. People need to realize that Twitter and FB are not the same thing. They need to be treated differently.
And yes, I hate seeing people post tweets too long and truncated because they are specifically for Twitter.
Good post!
10: Join Facebook groups and "like" other Facebook pages so that you can put obviously self-promotional posts on their walls, with little or no actual value for readers -- i.e., use Facebook to spam.
I totally agree with Shannon Sullivan. People who ask me to send them something and then tell me they never read their emails make me nuts!So why bother with a Facebook page if you're not going to update it?
Great Info..Will Keep It In Mind!! :)
Hey Mike, who do you think will be bigger in 2015? Google or Facebook?
#10
Don't pay attention to what others are saying about you and don't interact with them.
#10 - setting up your business profile as an "individual" instead of a "business official page".
Thank you for the article!
One of those times where we say it is better to not have a FB page than to have a poor one...
We all need to hire a full time person to manage all the social media now!