This blog post will explain the key features of Profiles, Pages and Groups and how they can be used to help promote your organisation or business.
What Makes a Good Business Person’s Profile?
- When you navigate to Facebook.com and set up a Profile, it should be for an individual, not an organisation. Facebook is clamping down on this. Make sure your Profile showcases you and your expertise, not that of a business. Sure, set up a Page or Group, while logged in on that Profile, to keep the connection with you and your business. But, don’t confuse the two.
- Add your name and contact details, including an email address, telephone number, IM details and web address. Crucial stuff, but often missing. It’s annoying to have to go to the website to find this all out, when people have made themselves available on Facebook for the purposes of networking. Final point on your basic Profile. Set Looking for to Networking. That way, people who are searching for other networkers will be clear as to the purpose of your Profile.
- Add a picture, for pity’s sake. It’s hard enough for those of us who are busy people to remember all the faces. It gets tiresome to see pictures of two-year old Management Consultants. It’s disorientating then to turn up to a meeting and see all these big people running around, when we were expecting toddlers… It doesn’t really much matter if you’re bungy jumping in your speedos or posing in the pinstripe. As long as I can see YOUR face.
- Using the Applications button (bottom left) add tabs to fill out your Profile. For example, an Events tab, if you run any type of Event. It takes minutes to add one event and they are easily shared across Facebook. This spreads the word fast. About 40% of recent attendees at a social media event heard about it via Facebook, most of which don’t even use normally Facebook for business purposes!
- Add an RSS/Feeds tab if you write/maintain a blog on your website. See the first blog post in this series for instructions. This will help redirect people back to your website, which is one of the main goals of using any social media tool for business.
- If you use Twitter, use the same tool as in the above point to display your tweets. Again, this redirects people back to your website, as well as letting them know what’s in your mind and what you’re up to.
- Finally, content. Do not maintain an empty Profile. Delete it. Otherwise, go make a list of all the sites where you find useful information, legislation, government news, other news, related stuff, about your industry or niche and use that as a source of information.
- Don’t forget to pay attention to what other people are sharing on Facebook. Do this by clicking on the Facebook logo (top right) each time you login. Share stuff. Like stuff. Comment on stuff. Try to make it relevant to your followers. However, there’s nothing wrong with sharing stuff that’s just good and useful, even if it’s not entirely related to your industry. Show a bit of personality and interest in other things. What goes around comes around. People will do the same for you.
- Engage in discussions and debate. Agree and disagree. Give advice and share websites you love freely. Above all, be nice. No-one likes a troll. I get lots of engagement/help/shares/free promotion on Facebook. It’s because I’m nice. 🙂
- Help people attract followers to their Profile by indulging them with one of the most fantastic new tools, tags.
What Makes a Good Business Fan Page?
- All of the above, mostly. Profiles and Fan Pages are very similar. Especially, ensure you add Applications to display on your tabs, for Events, RSS/Feeds and Books.
- Use your logo or recogniseable business artwork as the Profile pic. Avoid using a picture of you. This is where you promote the organisation, the business. It helps with brand recognition if they keep seeing the logo on their Updates page, every time you add a new item. This should help too when they get literature in the post, or visit your web page. Keep the look as consistent as possible.
- Add an Events tab. It makes me weep to discover that you do events, which you don’t post on Facebook. Really.
- Help others out. ALOT. When you meet new people at networking meetings, go find them on Facebook and Friend them. Then, post up a wee link to their site, or other online presence. They’ll love it. Trust me.
- Add photos of stuff happening at your business. Or, of products, new lines, new staff, new premises. Conferences, open days. You get the drift.
- Use tags, all over the place. I helps get new followers for you, as it places a matching tag, on the Wall of the person you’re tagging, if you follow. Check this out as soon as you tag someone to see what it looks like. Friends of the person you tagged suddenly become aware of you Fan Page, simply by visiting your Friend’s Wall. I love getting tagged. Thanks, Tracy Gilpin.
What Makes a Good Facebook Group?
Facebook Groups. The jury’s still out on this one. Suffice to say that we set up a Facebook Group to begin with and ditched it very soon after finding out that Events were only available on Fan Pages. I’m not especially qualified to write about Facebook Groups, nor interested. So, read this instead.
I may blog What Makes a Bad One next!! Any thoughts? Answers on a comment below please.
