Posted on February 25, 2011 by ‘We’ve got to have a Facebook page‘ is a phrase that tumbles out of the mouth of marketers in 1,000s of UK businesses every day. With 600m global users Facebook is a huge opportunity to reach out to current customers or find new ones.
But a Facebook page on its own won’t win you any new business – at the end of the day it’s just another web page about your business that happens to be hosted on Facebook.com. A Facebook page needs to be a destination where you interest and stimulate your fans, in the hope that they interact with you and ultimately recommend you on to their social network.
Here’s our top 12 ways to engage your audience on Facebook.
1. Customise your landing page. You need to standout and be memorable on Facebook, and the first way to do that is to create a customised landing page. This should reflect your brand and provide an easy introduction to all of the features of your Facebook page. Take a look at Facebook Platform or install the FBML application to start creating your landing page.
2. Add some Applications spice up your page. Whether its quizzes, contests, games or promotional offers, applications make your Facebook page an interesting place to be.
3. Do you attend any events? Speak at any seminars? Have a stand at tradeshows? Have an office party? Try posting Photos and Videos of these to show the people behind the Facebook page.
4. Start creating Discussion Boards in order to get feedback from your users and generate conversations. Ask questions on your discussion boards that you as a user might ask. Get people from your organisation to contribute to the discussion in their own name, so that users can see there are real people ready to engage with them.
5. Do you frequently create and add new content to your Facebook page or website? Try using the application Publisher to help keep your users completely up to date on your new content.
6. Do you attend events or exhibitions? Match these offline experiences with a Facebook Event, so that you can invite all your Facebook users, get them interested in the offline equivalent, and have them RSVP
7. Use your News Feed for targeted, interesting and engaging updates. These appear in your fan’s timelines allowing you to speak to them directly. These updates might be special offers or discounts, questions relevant to your industry, links to new blog posts, or information about your service.
8. Make sure you add Facebook Share to your main website. This makes it easy for people on your website to spread your content to their friends on Facebook.
9. Add the Like Box feature to your website. This lets users like your Facebook Page and even view its stream directly from your website.
10. Add a Comment Box to your website. This makes it easy for Facebook users to who are on your website to make comments about your content, and even post these comments to their profiles, thus sharing them with their friends on Facebook.
11. An advanced one this: if you can schedule the dev time, take a look at implementing Facebook Connect on your website. This allows users to log-in to your website with their Facebook ID. And more importantly, it becomes easier for them to share what they’re doing on your website with their Facebook friends.
12. Last but not least, if you want Facebook to be a place where you engage with current and future customers, make sure they know about your Facebook page! Promote to your website visitors and customer email databased with a “Find us on Facebook” Badge
That’s it
A Facebook page on its own won’t help you communicate with current customers, or reach out and find new ones. But take these steps to spruce up your Facebook page, and integrate it tightly with your website, in order to engage your audience and help them rec
