Several years ago, a Harvard student named Mark Zuckerberg got dumped by his girlfriend. He went back to his dorm room, got stinking drunk and started blogging. Egged on by his room mates, a broken heart, and a mini-fridge full of beer, that blog became (in February of 2004) the social media juggernaut that has become a household word: Facebook.
Initially, Facebook didn’t allow businesses to have pages, those were reserved for people. But we sneaky humans found ways of setting up Facebook pages for our stores, restaurants, funeral homes (I’m not even joking,) and any other kind of business you can think of.
Rather than fight it, Facebook (in late 2007) launched “fan” pages, which are designed for businesses to use.
The best part? It’s FREE to use. It’s practically UNLIMITED in its reach to your customers.
And if not properly managed, it’s EASY to SCREW your page up royally.
As professional managers of Facebook pages, we don’t want to give away the farm, but the heat is making us antsy, so we’re going to alert you to five common mistakes businesses make with their Facebook pages.
1. Not Having a Facebook Page.
I have actually been told, “Oh, that Facebook thing isn’t for us. In fact, we don’t have a social media presence at all.”
I wish I was making this up.
Everyone in business has a social media presence whether they know it or not. Think you don’t? Go to this really cool site called bing.com and type in your company’s name.
Everyone has a social media presence. The questions is: are you going to participate in the conversation about you?
2. Not obeying cover photo guidelines.
Your cover photo is the first thing people see. It should be of the highest quality as far as photography and art go, and most importantly, it CANNOT INCLUDE:
- Price or Purchase info (like 40% off, now only $9.95.)
- A call to action to “like”, share, comment, download, tell your friends, or anything of that nature.
- Contact information (email, web address, physical address, phone number.)
Don’t do that. You’ll have your business page voted off the Zuckerberg island.
3. Not Using correctly sized photos.
Facebook itself has templates with the ideal sizes for every kind of photo you could possibly use on the site, and there are plenty (cover, profile, timeline, custom tab, ad, event…the list goes on.)
So why is this so important? Well, suppose you have a wrongly sized photo on your page that looks like this:
When what you really want to post is:
This is fun, let’s do another.
This:
or:
The choice is yours.
4. Not using photos in posts.
Facebook has become a visual platform, so be sure to use it. If you just want to use text to communicate, you might as well stick to texting your customers on their phones.
“But my industry doesn’t really use photos for what we do.”
Sure they do, just get creative. (If you’re one of the funeral homes, you’ve got your work cut out for you, but it can be done.)
Which resonates (i.e. makes you want to buy) more with you?
This:
or:
A picture’s worth 1,000 fans (at least.)
5. Not interacting with your “fans.”
Facebook is the ultimate tool in connecting the Big Cheeses to the Cheez-its of the world. Consumers can actually communicate with someone in the big, bad, corporate office and have their voices heard. But that only works if someone on the other end is listening and engaging.
Yes, the font is small to be an accurate view of what was said, but the sentiment is huge.
In doubt? Always remember the equation: Social > Media = Happy Customers.
Have a good one, I gotta check Facebook.
Scott
