Liveworld

Written by former LiveWorld employee, @BryanPerson
Don’t forget to make your company’s Facebook Page human …  especially if you want to reach humans!
That was one of my favorite takeaway from yesterday’s outstanding MarketingProfs webinar on Facebook marketing by Ekaterina Walter (pictured), a social media strategist at Intel.
Ekaterina’s talk mixed big-picture Facebook marketing strategy for businesses and brands with the nitty-gritty tactical tips on topics such as Facebook News Feed optimization. And she has the chops to back up her advice, having managed and built up Intel’s Facebook presence over the last two years.
Here are five other best practices discussed by Ekaterina during the webinar that resonated with me:

1. Use landing tabs to convert new fans

When a potential new fan check out your company’s Facebook Page for the first time, a targeted landing tab is more successful in converting that visitor into a fan/Liker than the default Facebook Wall.
And don’t be subtle about your call to action, Ekaterina said. Make sure that landing tab includes a drop-dead-obvious driver to “Like” the Page, just as this Facebook For Business Page does.
 

2. Optimize Wall content for the News Feed

Only a small percentage of fans return to a brand’s actual Facebook Page once they’ve Liked it, so they’ll only see your Wall posts if that content appears in their News Feeds.
The solution? Creating Wall content that is engaging enough to generate comments, likes, and shares in the first place, and then letting the Facebook EdgeRank algorithm take over to propagate those posts across your fans’ News Feeds.
Best practices for generating Facebook Wall engagement include

• Keeping your status updates brief
• Asking interesting questions
• Mixing in video and photo posts, which are more likely to catch your fans’ attention in a text-heavy News Feed
• Sharing content that matches the culture of your brand (Buffalo Wild Wings is a master at this)

3. Create a sense of exclusivity

Is your brand’s Facebook Wall littered with status updates cross-posted from Twitter? Your fans aren’t going to like that, Ekaterina warned.
Instead, serve up Facebook-only content for your fans that acknowledge and reward them for their ongoing participation and feedback.
Examples include behind-the-scenes videos, Facebook chats, and special offers or discounts.

4. Have clear moderation guidelines and procedures

Ekaterina stressed the importance of well-managed Facebook moderation on the Wall, whether manually or with the help of third-party tools.
In Intel’s case, Ekaterina doesn’t remove posts and comments from fans simply because they’re negative or critical of the brand (see illustration below), but she will zap those messages that violate the Page’s “House Rules.” Hate speech, harassment, and commercial spam and link bating aren’t tolerated.
Ultimately, Ekaterina said, good Facebook moderation ensures that a few rouge trouble-makers don’t ruin the experience for everyone else, particularly Intel’s “core fans.”
 

5. Study Facebook Insights data

Facebook offers Page administrators regular reporting on engagement and Wall activity through its Insights data. Study that reporting, Ekaterina said, to understand the makeup of of your fans and the type of content that they prefer, and also to chart the growth of your Page over time.
Among the data points Ekaterina recommends digging into:

• User Insights
• Interaction Insights
• Average number of likes/comments per post
• Impressions (now updated in real time)
• Fan demographics
• Referrers from outside websites