The Social Enthusiast

With over 26,000,000 US users as of this year, Facebook is looking like an increasingly attractive place to begin a social media marketing effort.  Many companies are considering adding Facebook to their marketing toolbox.

That said, I ‘m still hearing a lot of questions about the basics of corporate Facebook use.   So here is a quick tipsheet to get you pointed in the right direction and clear up a few common misconceptions.

Page or Group? This question has been com

ing up for a while, but since people still ask me about it on a pretty regular basis, it probably bears repeating.   If you’re a for-profit business, you’ll want to go with a Page (also called a Fan Page).   Most of the time, even if you’re a non-profit organization, Pages are still the right choice.  Groups are really intended to be founded by groups of individuals around a particular topic or activity.  Think book clubs, community watch programs and canoeing/kayaking enthusiasts.  Pages are intended to be tools for businesses and organizations to transparently connect with Facebook users.

Business Account or Personal Profile? A business account is intended to enable people to manage corporate Facebook activity (Fan Pages and Facebook Ads) without creating a personal Facebook account.  Business Accounts have more limited access and priviledges than personal user profiles, so a personal profile is probably the preferred choice most of the time.  Technically, it’s against the Terms of Service to have both a business account and a user profile.

Acquiring Fans? A Facebook fan page can’t send friend requests to individuals (this would be spamming and probably wouldn’t be appreciated if you did have the technical capability to do it).  There are a number of ways that you can increase the number of fans for your page.

• Facebook Ads:  You can run a Facebook ad campaign to drive users to your fan page.  Facebook ads work similarly to paid search ads: you can target geographically, demographically and by keywords included in their profile.  You can choose a CPC (Cost-Per-Click) or CPM (Cost-Per-Thousand Impressions) payment model, but either way it’s a very affordable way to get attention to your page.
• Recruiting Fans Elsewhere:  You can drive your brand’s fans to the Facebook fan page with a banner ad on your own website, or by using email marketing or other techniques to let them know they can now connect with you on Facebook. Once people start becoming a fan of your page, the page’s popularity has the ability to spread virally as their recruitment shows up in their friends’ news feeds.
• Content Marketing:  As you begin to develop a fan base on Facebook, providing useful and interesting content will keep those fans engaged.  Videos, photos, event announcements and short status updates provide opportunities for fans to comment or like your content.  That activity also shows up in their friends’ news feeds.

These are the answers to some very basic questions about starting a Facebook engagement effort for your organization.  If you’ve got any other questions, feel free to drop them in the comments or contact us, if it’s a lengthy question.