What To Do (and not do!) On Your Facebook Fan Page
April 30th 2011 3 minutes to read
I’m going to assume you already have an lovely Facebook fan page (that also has a fabulous landing page!).
Here are my suggestions on how to use your fan page effectively (and what NOT to do).
Not So Good
- DON’T use your page to just have text link to your posts. There is no point, you will not get more traffic, and people will “hide” you on their FB feed.
- DON’T use your fan page to link ONLY to OTHER people’s posts. We want to interact with you and your posts, not a stream from CNN, Google, and your Google Reader.
- DON’T force people to “like” your page by making it a “term” of your contest or promotion. They will unlike or “hide” your page the moment the contest is over. It also makes you seem like you care more about numbers than actually valuing your fans.
- DON’T complain all the time about not having enough “likes” and make it an excuse as to why you don’t do more with your page. Those 2 fans you have will feel like you don’t appreciate them or their time.
- DON’T use your page to put down others or to set up smear campaigns. Being a bully is not something to be proud of.
Ultra Hardcore Awesome Do’s
- DO connect your fan page to twitter! By using the FB app, FB to Twitter, anything you post on your fan page will cross-post to your twitter account which in turn, gets you MORE traffic and sometimes MORE likes on your fan page.
- DO interact with your fans! Ask open-ended questions, RESPOND to their comments in a timely manner, and appreciate them! Remember, your FB fan page is not an RSS feed but a COMMUNITY.
- DO post frequently but be careful, posting every hour or more can be overwhelming to a person and they may “unlike” or hide your page from their feed.
- DO utilize Facebook Applications! Some examples are: Etsy, Twitter for Pages, Flickr for Pages, and YouTube.
- DO offer “extras”. It could be photos or video you didn’t have room for on your post, or even perhaps a contest or promotion!
- DO share your latest blog post! Even better if it has an image,because FB will pull it as a thumbnail!
- DO pay attention to the TIME OF DAY you post! If you’re in the United States, posting on your wall after midnight will garner LESS views / comments / interaction than a post at 8am or 8pm for example.
Go check out my FB fan page and by all means, link to yours in the comments!
This post is over a year old which means the content may be outdated or no longer accurate.
Great tips. I don’t do a whole lot with my fan page because I don’t have many fans. Primarily I do post links to my blog entries and I get much more traffic from the Facebook link than I do all Twitter links combined.
So far my FB traffic and Twitter traffic are about the same, however this past week my stumbleupon traffic has been through the roof and I can’t really pinpoint why because it’s not a specific post or review that is luring them in lol.
Excellent advice, as usual. I always feel weird that I have “fans” who aren’t also friends on Facebook, and worry I’m going to bother them with too many updates. It feels like such a hard thing to balance – being around enough that people don’t forget about me but not so much they want to hide my feed. I think maybe I’m over-thinking it.
I can understand over-thinking it! I try to aim for if not an update every day, once every two days. I’ve unliked pages that update every 5 minutes about EVERYTHING “Going to take a shower!” “I think I want a sandwich…” it’s like they’ve missed the entire purpose.
Also what drives me nuts are those that use their blog fan page for personal propaganda that may be missing from their blog (say it’s a home design blog and they post constantly about politics on the fan page for said blog).
Sarah, these were great tips! I really like #4 from the Not So Good list. That can certainly be annoying!
Thank you! I think that is a HUGE one actually. It’s used as an excuse “well I can’t / won’t because I don’t have enough fans”. So those 2 / 20 / 40 whatever people don’t count then is what I’m hearing!
Great advice all around! I would add that if you link your status updates to twitter, don’t also tweet the same thing. I have a few pages I hid because of that.
OHHH people do that? It drives me crazy sometimes when I see people cross post from fan page to personal page to tweets to tumblr to posterous to EVERYTHING, it always feels spammy to me.
You’re my blogging how-to heroine! Just “liked” your page. Really great suggestions, thank you! This is my page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Musings-of-a-Marfan-Mom/263664641270. I’ve been trying to ask open-ended questions and post relevant articles to increase conversations with my FB fans/followers. I always wondered how people posted stuff from their FB page to Twitter, so thanks for the link to the app!
Aww thank you! OH sweet! I’m glad the link helped!
I just found your Blog! I totally love your Blog template! So beautiful! These are really great tips! Thanks for sharing!
I´m a new follower of you now! :o)
Have a wonderful sunday!
Hug´s,
Verena
Thank you so much Verena!
Thanks for these helpful links. I loved sharing this with others. I linked my page up to Twitter.
I finally went back to having a business page for my blog and photography, because my friends thought I posted too much. With everything being linked to my profile, I can see that.
I love that we can now use our pages like profiles. It’s a nice separation.
It really IS a nice separation! I think it makes things a heck of a lot easier too.
Hi Sarah! Thank you for this – we just launched yesterday and our FB fan page is just a baby. I have linked our posts to our page, but now I’ll set up FB to Twitter on your recommendation. Thanks again!
Awesome! Link me to your FB page!
Thank you! I wanted to thank you for sharing your WP plugins too – such helpful advice. :D
Did you figure out how to fit your make-up in that bathroom yet? ;)
Aww thank you! LOL no. I have makeup everywhere on the counter still and the pile keeps growing. I think it’s breeding!
Thank you for those tips! I didn’t even know about some of the things you mentioned (like twitter LOL) and only have 15 fans so far! Hopefully I can get my number up this year.
I think the more one promotes the page, USES the page as the main profile to comment/like other pages, more interaction, etc… the faster you will build the fans!
I read through this… Worried I would be doing all the “don’ts” but it looks like I am on the right track!!!
<3
LOL like there was any doubt!
Great advice! I am really excited to see your tutorial about creating a landing page. Ever since FB went through all the upgrades I haven’t been upgrading my page along with it.
I am going to have to check out the FB to twitter app, but I often find it annoying when people post a link to a status update on FB. Is that what that does? I’ll temper that with the fact that I think more things annoy me than the average person, lol.