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Posts Tagged social media

25 Things to Do and Not Do to Have a Stronger Facebook Presence

Jul 27

Posted by spredfast in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

The Altimter Group and Jeremiah Owyang published a great report on how to market using a Facebook Page. Spredfast was honored to be among the resources Jeremiah tapped to research that report. The link to the Altimeter presentation on Slideshare is provided at the bottom of this post. We hope you take time to read through the 25 Do’s and Dont’s that Spredfast preaches with our clients.

The Do’s:

On a Page

  1. Take advantage of the ability to create custom content on a tab using the static FBML application, and make this tab the default landing page to new visitors.
  2. On the Wall tab, make sure you show content from the Page and from Fans, and auto-expand comments, so it is clear to visitors that there is a level of engagement happening on the Page.
  3. Be very involved in the conversation happening on your Page.
  4. Update the content on the Page regularly with a mixture of original wall post content, wall post referrals to other pertinent content, video and photos. Try not to post to the wall more than 3 time per day.
  5. Allow fans to post video and photos to the Page. Reach out to those that do and thank them.
  6. Use Facebook Events to promote your real events, even if they require registration. Simply provide a link in the Facebook Event description to the event registration page and ask people to both register and “attend” in Facebook.
  7. If you have events where you can get Facebook fans to attend in person, get photos and videos, post them to Facebook and tag those Fans in the content.
  8. Find other, relevant Pages and add them to your Favorites. Usually, that Page will return the favor and hopefully drive more people to your Page.
  9. Advertise your Page on your other web properties and content streams, including the ability to become a fan and subscribe to updates via Text.
  10. Be sure to adopt o personal tone with your communications on the Page, even going so far as to identify the author in posts. Couple this with photos of the authors, so people can put a face with a name.
  11. Target Page Updates and Posts using the built in targeting functionality.
  12. Ask your Fans to suggest the Page to other people periodically.
  13. Frequently make the content about the Fans themselves by asking questions, posting Fan stories, and commenting on their activities.
  14. Find existing Pages centered on your brand and engage with them. Support them with content and information.
  15. Offer insider information that only Fans have access to.

On Profiles

  1. Be sure employees who are engaging in Facebook activities on behalf of the company have good, consistent company information, and that your social media policy is well understood by these folks.
  2. Prominently promote the company Page.
  3. Add contest and promotional applications to these profile for greater spread across Facebook. Be sure to include an invitation component to the app, but never require invitations to be sent in order to progress in the app.
  4. Offer insider information that only Friends have access to.

The Do Not’s:

  1. Don’t make the content on your Page or Profiles all about the company. Fans don’t want just another version of the website.
  2. Don’t disappear on your community. Engage daily.
  3. Don’t overpost so that your Page becomes a nuisance. 2 or 3 times per day maximum.
  4. Don’t overdo it with contest application. Be selective, and make the app a high quality experience.
  5. Don’t try to own all of your brand presence. Collaborate with those people who have started Pages and Groups around your brand.
  6. Don’t take it for granted. Monitor what is happening on your Pages and Profiles by using the data provided by Facebook or other sources (like Spredfast).

You can check out Jeremiah’s report here:

The 8 Success Criteria For Facebook Page Marketing

View more documents from Jeremiah Owyang.

Or read the Atimeter Group report in Slideshare. It is very good.

Social Media Initiative managed by Spredfast

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Social Media Ownership – Centralized or Distributed?

May 18

Posted by James Young in Spredfast | 4 Comments

As more and more companies, brands, and organizations begin to view social media as a legitimate channel to engage with their customers and their market, more and more people are beginning to ask the question, “Who is ultimately in charge of our social media efforts?” It’s a good, hard question.

Econsultancy ran a survey and found some data that is interesting, but perhaps not detailed enough.

The recent Mashable article and the comments on the article give some indication that no one really knows the answer. 

Which, when you think about it, is kind of an answer in itself. No one seems to have formed a strong enough argument for any one department to own the overall social media effort.

Some say the Marketing or PR group, because they know how to craft a message that is appropriate to the audience. But that breaks down somewhat when you consider how social media tends to act like water, expanding into every possible open space. The message may be right for a known audience, but when the message starts making its way to the second circle of people, is it still truly the best message?

Some say the Strategy group should own social media because that team is best positioned to advise users on “how” to use social media effectively. Well…I don’t know. I think there is an art to communicating in social media that may not be best served by strategists.

Some say the Customer Service group should own social media, because they are engaging one on one with real people in real conversations. True enough, and social media is an excellent vehicle for Support teams, but limiting social media to support scenarios is like saying TV should only be used for music videos (BTW, does MTV ever show videos anymore?).

Some say IT should own social media because it is really just another system. If you ask me, that discounts the human factor that is inherent in social media too much.

Finally, a lot of people say that everyone in the company ought to be involved in social media outreach. And I agree, for several reasons.

  1. Social media is an excellent way to communicate with people, and as we all know, every conversation has a different nature depending on the who and what of the conversation. So, everyone in the organization needs to be able to use social media channels to conduct their business.
  2. Social media efforts are more effective when you have both a variety of voices involved and they are all authentic voices.
  3. Social media is a better way to listen, and every department in every company can benefit from listening to how customers and prospects talk about the company.

If you agree with this, then the next question to ask is how I can get everyone involved in the company social media efforts. There are definitely control measures you will want to put in place.

  • You’ll need a policy to guide everyone in your company on how to behave appropriately
  • You’ll need a policy to state how your company will treat content from those outside of the company that is not appropriate
  • You’ll want to understand the cadence that works well in your social media channels and have a calendar view so you can stop over sharing before it happens

The tools you choose will also determine how distributed you can be. Ideally, the tools you choose are flexible enough to work well in a centralized and distributed model. The tools also should accommodate multiple authors, channels and content types. Finally, the tools should guide each user to generating great content, whether that means knowing the right keywords to include, the right tone to take, and the right format for the channel the content is going out on.

As you might have guessed, Spredfast is a tool that fits that bill. I’m just saying.

Social Media Initiative managed by Spredfast

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