Facebook Fan Pages, Do You Need One?

2010-03-03T12:56:00.001-08:00

Why create a Facebook fan page, you might ask. Well, if you are promoting a business, location or organization and see the importance of networking on Facebook that is the option they request you use. Defy their instructions by creating a personal profile instead of a fan page and you risk Facebook destroying your work. A fan page is also an easy way to create an online identity. Having a Facebook fan page increases your brand identification. It is a simple, effective and inexpensive way to run advertising campaigns.

There are differences in the way that fan pages and personal profiles operate. To administrate your fan page it is best to also have a personal profile. Then you get the opportunity to use Facebook in every way that supports the growth of your brand and advertising campaigns.

Campaigns are used to spread messages. Just like any form of advertising, they need to be used consistently in order to get your message to stand out above all the others. Because of this, if you do not plan to utilize your Facebook fan page consistently, then don’t bother to create one. You may have some initial luck, but if you don’t use the medium regularly to communicate then you will be perceived as having no message, which may be worse than just having no social media presence.

It is important to communicate that you have something of value to contribute to the lives of those listening and that they can trust your voice. As the ability to self-promote is so ubiquitous online, it is essential to create a relationship of value and trust between your business and its supporters. Otherwise, no one will pay any attention.

If you are minimally computer savvy, it should take you approximately four to six hours to get your Facebook fan page off the ground with a few hundred supporters. Maintenance should take two to five hours per week, depending on how much growth you desire to achieve and how fast.

The first fan page I personally set up, which was for Cottage Grove, Oregon, took me approximately six hours the first week to get our first 250 fans. By the next week we had grown to over 1000 fans. Now, one month later we have more than 1,700 fans and I have done little promotion since the beginning. That is the power of social networking, once you get it into place, it grows while you are sleeping or taking care of other tasks. Now that I am more familiar with the process it doesn’t take me quite as long to get things going, however, I always figure computer tasks will take longer than anticipated, cause they generally do.

For upkeep, plan to spend fifteen minutes to half an hour, five to six times per week. That means it should take you a minimum of about 2.5 hours a week to maintain. As you gain skill and awareness the process gets easier. It will be rewarding and invigorating to have this new mode of communication in your business toolbox, so it is worth the effort and hardly a choice anymore.

Break the communication into chunks and spread it out through the week, otherwise your voice will get lost, as there is such a huge amount of communicating going on online. Post about things that are of value to your listeners. This increases the chance of your message going viral and getting passed around. You can and should plan some posts in advance.

Post about:

¶ Industry news that presents benefit to the consumers of your product or service.

¶ Information that is of service or value to your consumers/fans.

¶ Coupons or special offers are always a hit.

¶ Education that supports them and you.

When you offer value your consumers develop trust in you and are then more likely to respond positively to your messages. This means they are more likely to consume, purchase or be sold on your products or services.

Facebook offers documents on how to set up and operate a fan page. You can also find many helpful articles online.

Some important points to remember:

Fan pages can only be suggested to other users by current fans. So, you need to fan your own page as well as get your network to fan the page. If you are just getting set up and don’t have a large social network yet, find people you know and organizations similar to yours and connect with their friends.

Find friends

ü On the pages of similar organizations

ü Within your ZIP network

ü On your friends pages

Don’t ask every single friend and don’t use automated services to do this. It is perceived poorly in the social networking environment. Of course not all will accept. There were people who wrote me back asking, “Who are you? Do we know each other?” I explained in most cases that we didn’t, but that I had created a fan page that I was promoting. Some then became my friend and some chose not to.

Once I had a few hundred friends, I then began suggesting that they become fans of the Cottage Grove page. This is done in phases over a few days so that Facebook does not perceive you as a spammer. What then happens is that everyone who agrees to become a fan has a message that goes out over their friends’ feed, which says, “So-and-So became a fan of Cottage Grove, Oregon,” and everyone who also has an affinity for CG has a button they can click on to also become a fan of CG. The process then repeats on their friends’ feed page. In this way it grows exponentially. The potential is endless.

There are lulls in the process when you are not gaining many fans. This is the time to have multiple micro-messages going out thru the week, because as people indicate that they ‘like’ what you have said, their friends hear about that. In addition, if they are enthusiastic, your fans will repost what you have sent out. Your fans become your brand ambassadors.

One idea is to build up a few hundred friends on a personal page and then when you have your business page ready to go online, have a contest where you pick five people randomly from the first hundred fans and give them something. This could potentially explode into a ton of fans. When you are in need of more fans in the future you could try a variation of that where you have people post something to the page and pick a few winners from there.

I do try to communicate with all those who make an effort to communicate with me. That is what is so great about social media. You have direct contact with your audience. No middleman to charge you exorbitant fees just to tell you what your audience is thinking. They will tell you themselves if you chose to listen. The more interactive your communication with your consumers is, the greater loyalty you create. Plus, think of all the opportunities for free to low-cost research and advertising.

Created by Rose R. Miller,

707rosemiller@gmail.com

http://CottageGroveOregon.blogspot.com

http://facebook.com/CottageGroveOregon.com

New Media

Facebook Fan Pages, Do You Need One?