Social Media Marketing On Facebook (The Don’ts)
You may have read different opinions on how to market on Facebook. We realized that while it is a great to give some good ideas on what to do, it would also be useful to know what NOT to do as well. With that in mind, here is another list:
Talk to Your Audience, Not at Them: Social media is all about sharing, (some may argue too much sharing). However Keep “sharing” in mind when talk to your followers. Keep the conversation valuable not only you, but for them as well. No one likes “that guy” at the party who only can talk about himself. Facebook conversation is a two way street, not just a self-promotion mechanism for your business.
Don’t “Over” Post: While you may believe that you have a lot to say that will be of interest to your fans, remember that every post you make will appear on their wall. The last thing anyone wants if to have their wall filled up with posts from your company. It will feel way too much like “spam” if you post more than once or twice a day. Remember this is social media marketing, not personal marketing.
Conversations Should Not Be Discouraged: Following up on our last point, you want to have an ongoing conversation with your followers, and you want them to be an active participant in that conversation. To that end, keep your Facebook Settings to “Open to All Conversations”, and make sure you don’t overwhelm them with your own posts.
Negative Comments Should Not Be Removed: It may be tempting to remove negative comments and feedback from your business account, but don’t do it. You are likely to alienate many people if you head down this path. People are very aware when they post something negative, and quite often they will follow up to see if you have indeed deleted their comment. Negative comments are a good source of information as to what is not working with your business. You should take them seriously and work to address the issues if at all possible. Plus, if you are active in dealing with negative issues, you show followers that you really do care about what they have to say. This will only help you in the long run.
Don’t Do it By Yourself: All too often there is one person that does all of the posting, responding, commenting, etc., on a business account. But since this is your business account try and have at least two people (if not more) who can access, and post on your page. Of course you don’t want the office “ne’er do well” to be one of those people, but in general find people who are happy in their jobs and like to write. Let their personalities come out. And because you will have multiple people with different personalities contributing to it, your business account will come alive and will be kept fresh.
A Business Account Should Not Be a Profile Page: Facebook policies prevent the use of business account on a profile page. You are allowed to promote your business from your own personal page however. Profiles are meant to be strictly for individuals and if you use one for your business your account can be disabled.
Eliot Lamar is a freelance writer, currently writing on behalf of Toronto-based Digital Agency nvision solutions.
I would also add that not EVERYTHING ends up on the wall. Since introducing the EdgeRank algorithm that takes three factors into consideration; Affinity (How close is this person to you, a brand, or a page,) Weight (Type of post,) and Time Decay (Length since posting,) it becomes increasingly more difficult to ensure that fans see your content. Mix it up with links pictures and text. This, among other factors, will help keep you in the mix.