Enter The Net

Facebook Pages are designed to help you promote your business, non-profit, favorite political candidate, band, celebrity or anything like that. They are different from Profiles, which should be people and Groups which should be considered online communities with common interests. Each of these three elements of Facebook have slightly different abilities. This article focuses on Pages and it is presented in two parts.

PART ONE: THE FEED

Fans. Facebook Pages are sometimes called Fan Pages because they allow you to communicate with people who are “fans” of your business. Think of your fans the same way you think of your email list. You want to build a robust list and maintain a reasonable level of regular contact with them.

The Feed. The Feed is each person’s steady flow of information about their friends and more. It serves as everyone’s home page. Most of what you do on your Page will show up in your Fan’s feeds. Here are some of those things:

• Status Message. This acts exactly the same as the Status Message for your Profile. You can type a short statement, add a link, video, event, or photos.  Just remember that whatever you share will instantly appear on all your Fans’ Feeds.
• Photos: You can add Photos in exactly the same way you do with your Profile. A few samples from the album you make will appear on your Fans’ Feeds. They click on the Photos to see the whole album. Tagging. You can tag Photos with names of people who appear in them. This will result in a post to their Wall – which is kind of like a private Feed. It does not appear on their public Feed. Most people also elect to receive an email notification when they get tagged in a photo.
• Video. Video works the same as Photos.
• Notes. Notes are kind of like blog entries. In fact, many Page owners choose to post their off-site blogs as Notes. When you post a Note, your Fans get a post about it on their Feeds. You can Tag people in Notes, with similar results as with Photos (see above.)
• Events. You can create Events and send out Invites just as if your Fan Page were a profile. When you create an Event, you have some choices about how to Invite people. You can choose to post the Event to your Page Profile, which then sends out to all of your Fans’ Feeds. You may also send an Update to your Fans, notifying them of the Event. If you set the Event to be open for others to invite, you can Invite all of your personal Friends.

PART TWO talks about much more! Click HERE to go to PART TWO.

Need to read PART ONE of this article? Click HERE.

PART TWO: PROMOTION, UPDATES, DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSION

You will see a number of options available under your Page Logo. Click the More button to see them all.

• Edit Page. This is the place to go to make changes to the settings on your Page.
• Promote Page with an Ad. This is certainly the main reason Facebook made Pages – to sell ads. Facebook’s advertising system can be sharply targeted to your select audience – think about what Facebook knows about its users and how it could send ads to the exact demographic of choice. If you create Ads, you can send people who click on the Ads to your Fan Page or to your website.
• Add Fan Box to your site. I did this for Enter The Net and the Clackamas SBDC. The results are on the left side of this article you are reading.
• Send an Update to Fans. Updates are like messages to your Fans, with some major exceptions. Updates will not be forwarded to the recipients email address. updates do not appear on the Feed, nor do they automatically show up in a Fan’s Inbox. Fans can only see Updates if they click on the Updates button when viewing their Inbox.
• Suggest To Friends. Clicking here brings up your list of personal Friends. You can choose the ones you want to receive a canned message inviting them to become Fans of your Page.
• Add to My Page’s Favorites. This is available to your Fans who have their own Pages. If they add your Page as a Favorite, a link to your Page appears on their Page.

Discussions. You can start a Discussion thread by posing a question to your Discussions section. When Fans come to your Page, they can choose to participate in the Discussion.

CONCLUSION:

So, the main tools on your Fan Page are designed to do three things:

1. Build your Fans. Suggest to Friends. Promote Page with an Ad. Add to other Page’s Favorites. Add a Fan Box to Your Site.
2. Distribute Content to Your Fans. Stuff that goes on your Page Wall appears on your Fans’ Feeds, including Status Messages, Photos, Video, Events, and Links.
3. Strengthen Relationships With Fans. Create Events and Invite Fans. Start Discussions.

There are many other “powers” of the Fan Page, mostly related to applications available specifically for Pages. Some of these will be tested and reviewed in future articles on Enter The Net.

[back to PART ONE]

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