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Facebook Fan Pages — a Beginners Guide

Facebook Fan Pages is a business and marketing powerhouse. Even if the IPO has seemingly flopped. A Facebook Fan Pages attracts and drives significant traffic to website, create a community and deepen customer loyalty.

Use Facebook Pages to build a powerful brand and a powerful business. A Facebook Fan Page is a must have social media marketing channel.

Facebook Pages are a ‘Top of Mind’ marketing tool. Pages function best as a ‘top and middle of the marketing funnel’.

Facebook and Pages are constantly changing. Changes include the timeline and a greater emphasis on photos and videos. Remember Facebooks purchased Instagram for $1B. That is a billion dollar endorsement of pictures! Pictures are important.

Lets Dive deep and set-up the different aspect of Facebook Fan Pages.

• Timeline cover photo — This change is the biggest of the new design. The cover photo is a opportunity for brands to make the all important visual impact. It offer a massive picture size 815*315 pixels. This Facebook Image Size Infographic ‘cheat sheet’ explains the sizes.
• About info — Has moved from an obscure place in the sidebar to a prominent place below the ‘Products/Services’ verbiage. The new ‘About’ is another place to marketing your business. Ensure you place a link back to your website.
• Apps — Use the apps to tell your story and engage with fans. Apps are given a dedicate row below the cover photo. Twelve boxes are available, three are visible and the others accessible via a tab. Be creative!

The challenge and what separates great pages from all others pages is content. Content engages and compels people to act (like, share, comment, recommend).

Lets begin our Facebook Fan Page marketing with the visual.

The timeline cover photo has to convey proper brand messages. The Facebook Fan Page branding must match your other assets be seamless to potential clients. Branded content includes business cards, brochures, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, must have the same look and feel. Think in terms of brand touch points for your potential customers.

Timeline Cover Photo – ‘A picture is worth a Thousand Words’

The timeline cover photo is where your branding begins. It’s the first impression a visitor gets. The profile picture is the next most important. Each update will have a reduced size of your profile picture.

• Size — Refer to this “what’s your size cheat sheet“. Facebook Pages suggests the best photo size is 815*315 pixels. You can use a smaller image ( still greater than 399 pixels), but,  you are limiting your branding opportunity. Use the full size. Facebook has a simple photo editing feature so you can optimize.
• Rules — Facebook says you cannot include advertisement, coupons or promotions in the cover photo. And does not allow web address, email addresses, mailing address or a ‘Like or Share’ button, or any call to actions, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends.”
• Creativity — Oh yeah, you better bring that! Facebook does not limit creativity! Showcase your offices, your value proposition. Use customer generated content or inspiring messages as the cover photo.

Complete your Profile

Complete the About us section with all addresses and contact information.

Status Updates – What are you Planning on Posting

Status update using the new timeline is no different to your personal timeline.

Now begins the hard part.

What do you post as updates? Create a content marketing strategy with and an editorial calendar. These will help engage your audience and deliver your goals for your Page.

Social media and a Facebook Page are great for generating awareness for your brand, making sales and deepening loyalty of your customers. You must decide which is right for your business.

Here is the Facebook Secret

Status updates are all about content. Pictures, videos, image, words, links, a smiley face are all content.

The content you offer will engage or turn people off. Simple as that, no soft peddling, no bull.

Add value and people will respond. Back to the question how do you plan on using your Facebook Page? Will you use it to generate awareness, make sales, or foster loyalty? Each has different content strategy requirements. Spend time and put a lot of thought into your content, content strategy and content marketing. Content is the center of all your social media marketing. Nothing else is. Without content your social media marketing efforts will have difficulty achieving your goals.

Social Media without Content is 140 character Press Release tool — Nothing turns people off quicker then Advertisements

Content is not easy, but, oh so very important. These are examples of status update:

• Post a comment — “How is everybody this morning?”
• Post a link to your wall — Copy and paste a link and Facebook will grab the link preview. Ask for comments.
• Post a Video — Copy and paste the link and Facebook will grab the video. People can watch the video in Facebook.
• Upload photos or video —Have some good photos and video from last weeks meetup, event or trade show? Upload and share with your community. Pictures and video will look fantastic and drive engagement.
• Ask a Question — Self explanatory. As simple as “is it coffee or tea in the morning?, “What is your favorite time of the day, morning, noon, evening?” or directly related to your products/services “what do you like most about your___?”
• Surveys and Polls — Do marketing research, understand what the needs of your community are. What new features would they like, what features would they like revitalized? The answers you get are priceless.
• Reached a Milestone — Share that milestone helps people understand what your Page is about. Milestones take up the entire width of your Page and are visible to everyone who visits it.
• Pin an update to the top  — Yep, you can anchor and update to the top of your stream. You get an orange-colored flag as a signal to you and other that its pined. Pinned posts stay pinned for seven days and then returns to it chronological place in the time line.
• “Star a Post”  — Bring attention to an update by clicking on the “Star” icon. This allows you to highlight the stories you think are important. When you star a story, the story expands to widescreen. Starred stories are also always visible on your timeline.

Coca-Cola has ‘starred’ this fantastic photo. This give a super wide picture to view.

Did you know there is an audience selector?

Yep. And you can change who you want to share post with. Share your post with Public, Friends, Only me and Custom. And if someone post on your Page you can choose who sees this post.

Application and Custom Content

Use app to do almost any task: sell products, (e-commerce or is it fcommerce?) offer coupons, run sweepstakes, offer valuable content, survey your followers, collect leads, connect your blog to Facebook, use a calendar, connect with Twitter, and collect email addresses.

Strategy first tool and tactics second. Most important is to lead with your goals and strategy.

Amy Porterfield uses tabs to showcase her content. Marketing research, tips and strategies, videos and email sign-up.

Applications

• Photos — Photos are in place 1 and it’s not moveable.
• Customize the order — of the app to tell your brand story. Hover your mouse over app and a pencil icon appears — clicking on this open a menu with “swap positions with:” and contain a list of  all your app. Click on which app you would like swap with and its done.
• Apps—You can create your own app or install from a third-party. Both will display in the row below your cover photo.
• Change the App Name and Image —The ‘Photo’ and ‘Like’ boxes names and image cannot be changed. All other box images and names can change. Click the pencil, click the Edit settings and change the image and title. The image size for the apps is 111-74 pixels.
• Define your default landing tab — 1) click the proper tab. 2) copy the URL 3) Paste use that URL anywhere you want to drive traffic.

Facebook Page Administration Panel

The Facebook Page administration panel has a number of significant features that offer the important information.

• Notifications — You can use this news via an RSS feed. This is especially important if you manage several Facebook pages.
• New Likes — See all the people who have like your page.
• Message — See all your incoming message in this sections.

“Build it and they will come”

Is a slogan from “Field of Dreams” and should not form any part of your marketing strategy.

Build it promote it, promote it, drive engagement, use your content strategy, promote it, drive engagement, offer rewards, offer quality content, promote it, promote it, rebuild it, promote it, provide quality content.

Lets look at the Promote it.

Facebook offer a ‘Build Audience’ feature as part of the Facebook Admin panel. This ‘Invite Email Contacts’ is just that — invite email contacts. (Think about this for a second. If email is dying, as many have said, why is Facebook (and Twitter ) offering  to email your contacts requesting them to join your Facebook (Twitter) Page?).

Introduce and invite your email contacts to like your Facebook Page! Maybe email and social media help each other?

Facebook is an extra channel to distribute your content, your news and ideas. Facebook just like all other marketing channels in your marketing mix will help build your client list. Likes do not replace your email marketing, but, add and enhance the experience.

Grow Likes to your Page

• Invite Email Contacts — If you have a list of email contacts upload them with this feature. Ask the recipients to like and comment on your posts. You’re limited to uploading 5000 contacts per up load.
• Invite your friends — Especially useful to help seed your page when your page is new.  Invite your Facebook friends and the notification will arrive on their profile pages.
• Share a post with your friends —Share on your personal network will gain exposure for your Facebook page.
• Drive traffic to Facebook via Twitter — Here is how. Update to Facebook as per normal. Click the ‘date’, and displayed is the post URL in the address bar of your browser. Grab and shorten this link with a link shortner of your choice. Add text and share with your network. This will drive traffic your Facebook Page.
• ‘Facebook social plugins’  — There are many. Like, Send and Subscribe Buttons, Comments, Activity Feed, Recommendations Box, Bar, Like Box, Login Button, Registration and Facepile. Begin with the Like Button on your blog. This will allowing easy likes of your content from your blog and help spread your content.
• Facebook Landing Page — Create a page using the ‘tabs’ as your main welcome page. This will encourage ‘liking’ that is visible and obvious.
• Facebook Reveal page — A reveal page offers exclusive content, but, only after the page is ‘liked’. It’s pay for content with a like’.

The technical stuff of setting up a Facebook Fan Page is only the beginning of your social media marketing journey for your business.

The next Facebook Fan Page post will focus on a content strategy, what frequency to post and understanding the engagement levels.

Your Turn!

What do you think of Facebook Fan Page as a marketing channel? Will you be using Facebook Pages?

What are your experiences driving people to your page and expanding your network and using social media for your business?

Getting any success or traction? Do you have a successful social media marketing story?

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