Facebook pages for business are a useful marketing tool. Their benefits range from increased interaction with fans, a way to offer avid customers unique content and deals and overall branding that can help your product or service spread virally with the help of happy clients. A recent study has gone as far to attach a dollar value to each fan for consumer brands on Facebook – $136.
Unfortunately, many of Facebook’s tools aren’t as well documented as many marketers would like. While there are myriad choices for improving your Facebook page and brand strategy, avoid these three stumbling blocks before you begin.
Choose your name carefully – you can’t change it later
What’s in a name? A lot – especially when it comes to dominating Facebook search for key terms. As Nathalie Klein reminded me after a related Facebook page post, you can’t edit the name of your Facebook page. Once it’s created, your only options are deleting the original page (and losing all of your fans) and creating a new one. Take a minute to choose carefully when registering the new page.
Choose your creator carefully – they can’t be deleted as easily as other admins
Page creators on Facebook automatically become administrators of the pages they create. Unlike other administrators, they cannot be easily deleted – they must remove themselves after another administrator has been added. It’s a great idea to leverage some of your younger staff members who might have more experience with Facebook when you’re building a social media presence, but you probably don’t want your summer intern to be your page creator.
Want to keep all your admins on the same level? Here’s a solution to remove the creator’s special powers.
Make a splash – wait to publish until your page is ready
Facebook’s system of sharing makes it easy for fans to recommend your page to others. When you publish your page and people start “liking” it, their friends will see the action in the news feed. This system of sharing virally might encourage them to click through to your page as well.
In short, as soon as you publish, people are going to start visiting your page. That’s a good thing – but make sure you use this first splash as a chance to hook them in. If you publish your page as soon as you create it, your first visitors will see a framework that’s devoid of good content. Instead, get your applications in place. Create a custom welcome page. Consider adding an incentive to draw them in and reward them for becoming a fan. Provide a sampling of strong content that shows them what they can expect from your page in the future.
And by all means, have a strategy in place. It makes a huge difference.
Great Tips! I would also check out Involver!