Reply to comment

Previously, we've discussed our approaches to Twitter, Scribd, and SlideShare. Now it's time to address the social site with the biggest stage right now: Facebook.

Michaela Hackner and I recently hosted a pair of NTEN webinars titled "How to Become a Facebook Rockstar." We took folks through the steps required to raise the profile of an organization using Facebook Pages.

The combined length of the sessions was three hours. Here, we boil it down to the essential tips.

Set the Stage

Before you get started, you need to make sure your organization (and organizational leadership) understands that Facebook, like Twitter and all the rest, are just tools. You can't dive in just because Facebook is what all the kids are doing these days. Define your goals: Are you looking to find volunteers, direct activists, recruit talent, or raise money? In our view, too many organizations dove into Facebook reflexively, with either few or unrealistic goals. Then, they were disappointed when they didn't immediately see results. With any social media space, there are three key ingredients to success: 1) Setting goals, 2) Picking appropriate tools, and 3) Maximizing your understanding and use of those tools.

Why Play?

Facebook isn't just all hype. It's an extremely popular site with over 100 million U.S. users. It recently overtook Yahoo.com to become the United States' second-most visited site. And its users are groupies not casual fans. Half of Facebook's registered users log in daily. So the potential audience is huge. But how do you attract your key audiences to your small stage within an enormous music festival?

Get the Band Together

First you need to create your Page. A common question is whether to invest time in a Facebook Group or a Page. For organizations, when looking to extend your footprint, the answer is almost always a Page. Over the past year or so, Facebook has really poured its resources into Pages in hopes that brands will buy advertising to drive traffic to their Pages. Pages are designed for corporations — for-profit or otherwise — and offer more flexibility and features than Groups. You can create a vanity web address (URL) for your page, send geographically-targeted emails to your Fans (using the internal Facebook email system), and install applications that leverage your other social media outposts. Pages are also publicly accessible to everyone -- even visitors who aren't logged into Facebook. They even show up in Google searches! (For more on the differences between Pages and Groups, see this nice post by John Haydon.)

Grow Your Fans

Once you create your page, here's a few basic notes to help get the word out:

• Unlike Twitter, your new Page can only forge connections with people to whom you (or your Fans) are personally connected. So, encourage your staff members to become a Fan of the page. Use the "Suggest to Friends" link (under your Page's logo) to invite your friends to become a Fan and ask your staff to do the same.
• Use Buttons and the Facebook Fan Widget on your organization's web site to make your audience aware of your page and help them connect with you on Facebook. You should put buttons on your organization's main site pointing to your page. Also, Facebook has made it easy to extend content onto your page through their widget.
• Promote your page within your organizational email lists, blogs, and print collateral.
• Add partner organizations to your Page as "Favorites" and ask them to reciprocate.

Those are the basics. Here are 25 additional ways to attract fans.

Play Like a Rock Star

The best way to grow fans is to post compelling content regularly. Your posts should typically occur with less frequency than on Twitter — perhaps once or twice a day. Even just a few times a week may be enough for some organizations, especially in the beginning stages. It is acceptable to be moderately self-promotional since the page is your space. However, don't just post text. Post photos and videos from your organization's latest events. Show your staff and volunteers in action. In addition, find ways to seed your feed with external content that is interesting and relevant to your audience. Like a musician performing a new riff on a classic track, don't be afraid to take other people's content and make it your own by adding a touch of commentary when you add it to your Wall.

By far, the most compelling content is anything that sparks conversation. Ask questions. Use quizzes. Hold contests. Publicize events. Be original. You want people to talk about you after they leave your show. And by all means, when people comment on your Page's posts, respond! This lets your audience know you're listening to them and that you care what they have to say. After all, you're here to serve them and build that relationship, right?

Dress Your Stage

If you already have good content on other social services such as YouTube or Flickr, you can publish that content onto your Facebook Page through the use of Facebook Apps. These apps can place a new tab on the top of your profile with your custom content. Facebook maintains a directory of available apps at: www.facebook.com/apps/. It's sort of an iTunes Store for apps, only not nearly as well designed. Make sure you click on the "Pages" filter, as many of the apps can only be installed on your personal profile not Pages. Sometimes, it's easier to find the app you want by doing a Google search for the service name and "Facebook Pages." One good provider of Facebook apps for every major social media site is Involver.com. But Michaela's favorite Flickr app is Flickr Tab.

If you wish to really dress up your pages with more sophisticated formatting or functionality -- and have access to tech-savvy staff or a consultant -- look into creating a custom landing page using the Static FBML app. Or if you have superstar dreams, build your own custom Facebook app.

Learn About Your Fans

The "Insights" feature lets you know whether your Fans like your play list. Look for the "Insights" box in your Page's left column. This box is only visible to your Page's administrators. Since there's a lot to talk about here, let's focus on the most mystifying items.

In the upper left corner you'll see two scores:
   1. Post Quality, expressed as a number, indicates how engaging your posts are to your fans. It is the percentage of your fans who engage when you post content to your Page. It's calculated on a rolling seven-day basis.
   2. Star rating, expressed as 0-5 stars, compares your Post Quality score to that of similar Pages (for example, Pages with similar numbers of fans).

For deeper analysis and improved understanding of what Facebook is tracking, click the "Export Data" link at the top of the Insights page. It will allow you to download your Fan's daily activity into a spreadsheet.

Unfortunately, Insights does not yet tell you exactly which of your posts were most clicked on. But you can infer the popularity of your recent posts by evaluating the number of "likes" or comments that appear on your Wall next to each post.

Pick Your Instruments

For posting and monitoring, Facebook doesn't have nearly as many available options as Twitter.  Still, many of them let you post updates and read your feed. Few apps let you actually manage your page, moderate comments, or other common functions. So although the apps add convenience for adding updates, you'll find yourself returning to Facebook.com regularly to monitor conversations.

Facebook apps come in three flavors: mobile apps, web-based tools, and downloadable applications. 

• Mobile Apps: At this writing, the only mobile app we've found that lets you update your Page from your phone is Facebook's own app for iPhone and Android. (Let us know in the comments if you've seen others.)
• Web-Based Apps: HootSuite and Co-Tweet are both excellent, free services. If you already use these to manage your Twitter account, you should add your Facebook account here too. One nice feature of these apps is the ability to schedule a post to be sent at a future time.
• Desktop Apps: TweetDeck and Seemic Desktop both now allow you to update your Page and read your Page's Wall.

Encore

We hope these tips will help you rock out your Facebook Pages. We try to follow our own advice in our work. Check out Forum One's Facebook Page and become a fan! And share your own experiences in a comment.