Whether created by you, your boss, or the Cal Coast Web Design team themselves, your Facebook Fans page was built as a means to market your product or service, to market your company, & to establish your brand! In today’s day and age, your competitors are maintaining a social network. You need to be too. We know you’re busy. Let us train one of your employees, friends or family members to help you maintain just a few minutes a day before or after checking your email.
Whether getting ready to do yourself or passing along to a helping hand, you need to get educated with Facebook fans page 101 if you want your business to be a thriving part of the web marketing experience where companies continue to flourish even in a daunting economy.
It can mean the difference in hundreds of leads.
FIRST THINGS FIRST, your Facebook account is connected to dozens or even hundreds of friends/fans (or soon will be). Every time you make an announcement, it goes out to all your friends. When they reply, it goes to theirs. Instantly you have hundreds of salesmen and new potential customers notified of your business update.
See more about this with this video explanation by Cal Coast founder, Angie Weeks at an Orange County LeTip meeting…
The ultimate point of this whole Facebook game is to keep people engaged in actively serving as your salesman and also constantly knowing whats new so that they too may be regular customers. We can take action with that we don’t know of. Keep the web informed where nearly 80% off even OFFLINE purchases start!
You want to make your page worth staying on and coming back to. The best way to do that is with engaging updating content!! There are literally 1000s of things you can do with your Facebook Fans page. Lets start with setting your page up to be worthy of promotion….
To Start Off lets talk about where to access your Facebook fan page, if you already have a profile on facebook all you need to do it log into your account and the bottom grey bar on the right hand side says “Ads and Pages”, click on that and it will take you to your fan page.
1. Update your wall. Once your logged in, you are often times defaulted to post on your wall. Keep in mind that this is an editable option so some fan page may have an alternate default page. Simply select your “Wall” tab at any time to see your overall list of “to-dones.” This is a list of all the actions you recently took on Facebook be it posting images, making friends or otherwise. Letting people know what your up to means letting them trust you. People shop with those they trust.
So, keep them updated. Just simply post. Tell them what your up to. Here are a few ideas to get you started.
- New product or service?
- Update on product or service
- News!
- Featured events
- Photos of events & arrivals
- Tools & Resources – Doyou have something that helps get you through the day?
- Holiday promotion
- Congratulations
- Reviews
- Exclusive FB (Facebook) content – These are videos, tips, news & special gifts only available on Facebook.
- Contests & DrawingsAdding New content under the What’s Going on Section is easy just type text into the box and share! Whether its just text or one of your other default options, just get started! You may also choose to share a link (perhaps to your website or that handy tool you are referencing), photo, video or more! Make sure you make it simple to take action! Do unto others, right???
Have the iphone, download the iphone facebook application and make updates from anywhere!
Don’t have the iphone, simply visit the “Mobile” section of your Fans page settings. This allows you to publish your status updates via mobile phone for when you’re on the road. Once you get comfortable with Facebook, this can be a great way to let people know your status updates quickly. You have to have a carrier that works with this service so check your service plan.
What to get extra geeky? Update your facebook through twitter using the Twitter Facebook application HERE.
Want to keep your personal twitter updates off of your Fan page? You can use the Selective Twitter Status Facebook application to only update with a separate account when using “#fb” tag in your tweet.
2. “Edit Information” & your “Info” tab. – By clicking on Edit Information, you can manage the information settings on your page. This is where you can add your website, picture and basic info that displays on your “Info” tab on your Fan page. Make sure that you have completely filled everything out. At least provides your contact info. If someone is interested in getting in touch with you, this is where they’ll look, but you should also consider giving them the info you want in order for them to take the next step. Make it easy for them to share news with friends or engage. An engaged fan is a salesman.
3. Update your Fan page with photos & video. Who wants to sit and look at a sea of black? Take a look at this post without any images….
How do you feel? Probably don’t want to stay there long did you? Probably feel disconnected from the site, no?
Keep your fans a part of the EVERYTHING. Here are some ideas so that there are no excuses.
- New products or services in action
- Event coverage
- Screen shots of helpful tools, resources & favorite sites.
- “How to” videos
- Your fans themselves!
Still don’t have any ideas? Simply twitter us @calcoast or post a comment below with your business or fan page and we would be happy to help inspire!
Once you upload them, you can add comments and tag other fans in them. These photos are posted in the homepage news feeds of your fans, which can get their attention and encourage them to take a look. This takes them to your page to begin engaging themselves. When they take action on your site, it then also posts to their friends feeds and then all they friends can follow suit. Thanks Facebook sales team!
4. Discussion Boards – Under your discussion center you can click “Edit” then start a new topic. This is a great tool for encouraging people interacting with you. Their friends can see them interacting and we all want to check out what our friends check out! Additionally, the more interaction the better rankings this page will receive in the search engines!
Use this to start a conversation about topics of importance or interest in your industry. This can be a great tool for you to get some valuable feedback from your clients and moving forward in directions to better serve them. You set the topic, perhaps even start with your own thoughts and opinions (when applicable or wont sway other interaction) and then promote. Go out and share the link to your discussion with your friends & fans!
5. Events – Adding Events is important. You dont want to be the only friend not invited. All you have to do is click “Edit” under the Events section, type in the information and your set. What are you waiting for. Ensure your fans know about…
- New listing, service or product release date
- Sales
- Contests
- Holiday hours
- Seminars
- Birthdays & anniversaries
- Industry historical dates
- Networking meetings
6. Notes – Don’t have enough room for your update? Want to include reference to certain fans or groups? Notes allows you to share information through written entries. You can tag people you know in these entries and others can leave comments. If you want to write an article or other piece of custom content, this is where to do it. Share valuable resources and posts this way if you aren’t yet maintaining a blog.
7. 3rd Party Apps – There are thousands of applications to integrate with your Facebook Fan page. Applications are like widgets or add-ons that allow us to quickly and easily integrate content and functionality into our fans pages without a ton of html and geeky computer knowledge.
We encourage you to just quickly go to the “Applications” section in the bottom left corner of your Facebook page and click on “Browse more applications.” Or simply CLICK HERE to search Facebook applications.
So, you think you have a Facebook Fan page worth spending some time on? Ok, lets keep it that way with frequent updates to keep your fans and online clientele in the know.
Lets also build our sales force & online clientele by making friends and offering your page to potential fans. Then, lets keep them engaged!
Now get out there and start making friends now that you have valuable content.
1. Make some friends:
- Start by searching for all your friends, relatives, networking friends, past clients, regular clients, and more. Just request them as friends! The more friends you have, the more friends you can share your fans page with. Once you have a bunch of friends, you can just go to your fans page, scroll down to the “Share” option in your nav and post your fans page to your personal profile or send a message suggestion to any friends.
- Make it easy to share with an “Invite People” tab on your page.
- Include your Facebook fans link in your email signature
- Add links to your Facebook fans page on your website and other social networking platforms.
2. Acknowledge your fans. When new or even returning Fans write on your Page Wall, respond by writing back on their wall. This is just another way for you to encourage them to cntinue interacting or even their friends who see your correspondence in their rss stream too! Great way to do this…
- Customized links to products and services hand selected just for them!
- Reviews – if you post a review or testimonial to one of your fellow vendors or networking buddies, it will only inspire a return recommendation.
- See what they’re up to and engage in their convos.
Again, its important to remember that every time you take action, your fans news feed gets an update and hen they take action, all their friends see. Make your updates worth following and engaging. Call them to action!
What are you waiting for? Free ideas. No excuses.
Must Read Related Articles From Our Fellow Geeky Bloggin Buddies:
For All: How To Develop A Facebook Page That Attracts Millions of Fans
How To Create and Promote Your Facebook Fan Page
For Agents: 50 Ways to Use Your Fan Page to Earn Business, Part 1 – Part 2
Cal Coast offers one-on-one Facebook Fans optimization and maintenance training.
