Thanks to my favourite Ms Manners (who was also the top student on out last Social Media course –no surprise there!) and Julia Willcox for inspiration.
Staying On top of the Facebook Wall.
1. Stay regular
Regular content features will make users visit your page repeatedly and interact with your brand on an ongoing basis. It will also give you a longer term opportunity to gather feedback and determine what your users like and find useful. This also builds trust with your fans and this will encourage them to stay on your page for longer. Ideally, of course, you want to keep your users on the platform for as long as possible. By being there in the first place, they’ve shown you that it’s a medium with which they feel comfortable. This means that your functionality needs to be such that, in so far as is possible, they can complete your goals on your Facebook page.
2. Define and measure success
Many companies have reservations about Facebook. This is not only because they’re worried their employees spend their days cyber stalking their ex-lovers, but also because they lack the depth of knowledge to understand how an investment like this can possibly be measurable. I’m guessing if you’re putting together a content plan, you’ve overcome this obstacle. Nonetheless, it’s critical that you know how you’re going to measure the success of your Facebook content. This will assist you in setting realistic goals.
A starting point is to consider the number of friends/fans you have, the growth or decline in these numbers, the number of comments per post or over a specific period of time and the number of clicks you get on links and resources. If you like, you can even install analytics on your page (learn more about Google Analytics at Sarah Blake’s great workshop running in Cape Town and Jozi next week!)
3. Always communicate in the first person
Why? Primarily because it’s more personal and will make your readers feel like they are engaging with a person and not with a brand robot – something that is always helpful but is even more beneficial when we consider the social nature of Facebook. First person also allows you to inject personality into your content very easily.
4. Watch your tone
Every element of an integrated marketing campaign should be in keeping with the look and feel of the brand in question. With that in mind, it is also important to remember that depending on the touch point they are using, users expectations may differ. Here, we’re talking about Facebook – a platform that brands have adopted, but that traditionally users use as a social platform to connect with their friends and family. It’s this intent that you need to take into account when planning content for Facebook, which as a result should not venture too far from the brand guidelines, but should be more casual at the same time.
5. Create some general guidelines for your team
It’s unlikely that only one person will be 100% responsible for managing your Facebook content creation. Even if this is the case at the outset, it’s important to realise that it might not always be so. So, as part of your content plan, it might be useful to outline some guidelines for your team on communication. While these guidelines will differ hugely across the brands, it’s a good idea to try to get across that you are all facilitators rather than preachers and that there is a specific tone and style that you are going for in your content and communication.
6. Consider how you are going to handle response and moderation
Moderation and response times are a cause of much ire for both brands and consumers. Knowing this upfront can save you from a lot of embarrassment and over time, can hopefully help you to grow a largely self-regulated community. The key here is transparency. It’s best to make some key decisions around whether or not you are going to moderate comments, how often you will be checking the page for questions and feedback and what your maximum response time to these interactions will be.
In terms of checking the page, the regularity with which you need to do this is dependent largely on the size of the community you’re dealing with. Larger groups need to be checked every 30 minutes while smaller ones need only be checked 3 or 4 times a day. Most importantly though, you need to inform the community of this decision and manage their expectations accordingly. This will result in fewer messes that you need to later clean up.
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