The best way to devalue your brand on Facebook, is to have a lack luster fan page. It isn't sufficient to simply chuck up your company logo in the profile picture, get a few fans and then sit back, relax and wait for the millions of people on Facebook to become a fan of your brand. So to help you avoid being in that category, or to improve a fan page you already have running, here are 10 tips to help maximise your presence on Facebook.
1. Create a Vanity URL
A vanity URL is simple your brand name after the facebook URL. For example, Nike Football fan page's URL is
http://www.facebook.com/nikefootball. To be eligable for a vanity URL, your page needs to have 25+ fans. Not only will this make your page much easier to find for users, but it also makes it a great marketing tool.
2. Create an awesome profile image
It's not good enough to simply have your logo as the profile image. Make use of this real estate! Use it to market different promotions or to promote a new product or event. A great example is Nike Football's (you may have figured out that I'm a bit of a fan!) profile image. They could have just put the Nike tick logo on there and been bland and boring, instead they decided to use it as a promotion for their new Mercurial boots with a great looking ad, turning their page from good to great.
The optimum size for profile image is 200px wide x 600px height (this is the maximum height), if it's any bigger, Facebook will automatically resize the image proportionally.
Go on, update your profile image now, it's a simple way to really improve your page.
3. Join the conversation
Conversations are at the heart of social media platforms, so to use your fan page as just a news board, without interacting with your users, is pretty much missing the point. If you're the person responsible for the Facebook page, make the time to regularly monitor it and respond to any questions. Why would people want to write on your wall if you're not going to respond? Yes - this is time consuming, but it's worth it.
For example, check out Melbourne Heart FC, they posted some images of a training session (which is a great behind the scenes look into the club), however some people had some questions as to where the training was being held. Props to whoever is managing the page, as they were monitoring it, and responded accordingly.
4. Relax! Write like you would having a conversation
Users don't want to read the latest media release as the status update, they want to see short, relevant information that it written in a way that shows there is a person on the other end. A good indication if your doing this right is that people are commenting or liking your status.
5. Post Quality Content
If you want to keep your fans involved and coming back, then it's crucial to post quality content. What is quality content? Content that the user wants to see. Profound! Post images, videos, ask questions, create user polls, post behind the scenes information, give snippets of what's coming up that will get people excited.
6. Update regularly!
Updating your wall once a week isn't going to cut it. Aim to update your status at least once a day. The best way to do this is to create a content strategy. Figure out what your going to post and why, then create a simple weekly schedule that outlines what your going to publish and when. Not only will it stop you stressing out on what to post, but it will show your fans that your page isn't a one hit wonder, that your committed to it and want to interact with them.
7. Don't land on the wall
Why? The wall is one of the few things you can't control, who knows what kind of comments people are going to see when they first jump on your page. Control the controllable, and direct users to another tab. Make use of the different tabs you can create and utilise these. An example of this is
Nike Football.
8. Use Static FBML for your sidebar
FBML stands for Facebook Markup Language, and this great
tool can be used to create some interactivity into the page. That includes changing the landing page for your page, adding graphic and buttons into your sidebar, basically allowing you to really customise your page to get the most out of it.
9. Get Your Fans Involved!
Get your fans involved in your page - answer their questions, maybe follow up on an idea that they came up with, get users to post videos or photos that relate to their brand, better yet, tag users in photos.
10. Monitor your page
There's no point in setting up a Facebook page and then not monitoring it. Again, to get the most out of Facebook for you and your fans, listen, join the conversation and start conversations. It isn't rocket science, but it does take time.
What are other tips you've done to get more out of Facebook? What have you done that has or hasn't worked?
