Tips About Facebook For Creatives – Part III
After two posts about setting up, I’m looking forward to talking about the actual “doing” on the FB page! Your page is all set-up and the first thing to do is to get some people to click that “like” button so you can start telling them about all the great stuff you do and keep in contact with them, ask for feedback, etc.
This checklist shows many channels you can use to place a reminder or icon about your FB page (do this like you would sew seeds to grow a lawn):
__ Add an invitation to your existing content
__ Add to your Email signature
__ Add to your Autoresponders
__ Other social networking sites
__ Add a like button or box to your Website
* This is the link that takes you to the developers section where you can get the code to put boxes and buttons on various sites.
And don’t forget to invite the following communities:
__ Your current Facebook friends
__ Existing customers and email subscribers
__ Industry leaders and influencers
__ Your competition and joint venture partners
The first thing you’ll want to do is share your page with all your personal contacts, inviting them to like the page. Don’t be shy about asking people to spread the word about your FB page. Be careful not to seem too needy though; this isn’t a competition or a high school popularity contest.
Now that you’ve got some fans on your page, you’re ready to let loose with updates. Like I mentioned in the first post, pick a posting schedule and stick to it. If you’re unsure, start slowly with a weekly update. Whenever you start using a new site, it’ll take time to become familiar with it, so don’t place such high expectations on yourself that you become easily discouraged. Start slowly and as you gain confidence, you’ll find that you will naturally have more to say – and you’ll want to say it loud and clear!
When making updates, try to put as much visual or video content as possible. People respond really well to images. And if you want people to ‘like’ the image or comment on it, all you have to do is ask. Some studies were conducted on FB posts and they found that when you frankly and clearly ask people to like or to give a comment, most oblige. Not everyone necessarily hits that like button even if they do like the post. I know, it’s weird, but it’s true.
Another great thing to do is to ask questions. You’ll find people answer. You can add a question when you upload a picture, inviting conversation or comments.
Most importantly, be YOURSELF. Be natural and conversational. For a talkative person like me it’s easy, I know, but everyone can do it. You don’t need to study anything to do this, just chat like you would to your friends.
Most important tip #2 – ALWAYS ANSWER if someone posts to your wall. It’s highly appreciated and shows that you’re not just there to show your stuff, but that you care enough to answer people who take the time to write to you.
A little while ago Facebook also introduced the Question option on the dialogue bar. This is a lot of fun because you can ask a question and give multiple-choice answers that people can choose from. Feels like exams all over again, but fun ones! This Question bar is great if you want to poll people for opinions or advice or if you’re having trouble deciding on something you want to do with your creative endeavor. And it’s an excellent way to engage your audience, it shows you care about their opinion. Now, the caveat is that if you ask for an opinion on something it would be good to follow up letting them know that you took their responses into consideration. Don’t forget about that last bit, it’s easy to do, but remembering to go back and update people on issues you’ve asked about is very powerful.
Another good tool to use is the “update fans” tool, which allows you to send an inbox message to all your fans. This is found under the “resources” tab in your edit settings, under “Connect With People”. What comes up looks a lot like writing a message to one of your friends.
By clicking on “target this update” you can filter the message to reach a specific audience. This is handy if you’re doing something specific, for example geographically, or if you want to send something only to all the girls, or for people within a certain age group.
We use this sporadically, reserving it for special announcements. We don’t like to bombard people with messages to their inbox. It’s still a really great tool to use, in combination with regular updates to the wall.
The last checklist (promise) is about monitoring your FB account. You can do that from the analytics section of your edit screen. These data tell you all about the activity and interactivity of your page and are very useful as they help you “see” the results of what you are doing.
__ The number of interactions you have had with fans each day or week
__ The number of comments you had on your posts
__ The # of visitors from Facebook to your blog or landing page
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned with Facebook is that, although it’s digital and its typed words rather than human interaction, you can learn to sense your audience by observing their responses to what you post. Just because you can’t see their face doesn’t mean you can’t infer what’s going on. You really can, by being observant to the reactions and responses you get.
Keep in mind also that posting days and times play a role in responses. Again, tons of studies are being done on this and it can make your head spin, but a couple of rules of thumb are that most people are on FB in the morning before work, in the evening after work and on the weekends. Fridays are good days to post, Mondays less so. Figure out which days/times work best for your particular audience and do some tests with this, have fun - it’s like being a social media scientist!
Another key point is that you must change things up: surprise people with a video one day instead of your usual image post, ask a poll question, run a little contest, do something quirky. It’s amazing how quickly we get bored with seeing or hearing about the same things. So put yourself in your audience’s shoes and spice things up now and again for fun.
And fun is the operative word to all this. Your personality will come through in your posts, and if you’re having fun, so will your fans.
This is it for the FB part of the posts. I didn’t expect it to be 3 posts long, but there is so, so much that you can do with this platform. I hope you’ve found it helpful. Next week I’ll move on to other online platforms to help you promote yourselves. Stay tuned and as always, thanks for following.
