10 Tips To Enhance Your Communication On Facebook

- Branding - Gather basics, but don’t copy.
There’s more than one reason for why companies spend so much time and resources on defining their branding standards. It is very important for a brand hold a logo, colours with specific tones, special fonts for the lettering and so on. Even shapes are crucial to keep in mind! If your website or your signs by the highway are filled with lines or square shapes, then it would not make sense to have circular and diamond shapes all over your E-Mail Campaigns and Facebook Brand Friendly Page or Microsite (B-Liked Facebook Solution).
By all means maintain the basics of your company branding on Facebook when asking your designer to build you a great profile picture and your B-Liked Page. Now, keep in mind that the dynamic of Facebook marketing -as opposed to mass marketing such as E-Mail- is about two-way interaction. Your content and your brand needs to be more approachable than ever on your Facebook Page. Your audience has expectations that you must meet when giving introducing your brand on Facebook and it will lose value for your customers if it is too similar to your other marketing or communication channels.
To wrap this one up, keep your branding consistent but make sure you present a different face of your company to your audience. Make it different, play with it and most importantly, have fun with it.

- Link Facebook to your Mobile device

We’ve all heard it: Location, location, location. As a marketer, one could approach this in two different perspectives. First, all of your mobile devices should be configured so you can update your status and respond to comments or posts from virtually anywhere. Remember that your Fans will appreciate even the most random news from your company. Fans expect brands to be human, and few things are more human than being at the airport in New York and asking your fans for some advice to fight boredom.
Now secondly, keep in mind that social media never sleeps. As much as it is useful to engage with your audience all day, one would think that resting is necessary at a certain time. But what if someone posts a comment on your wall about the most awful shopping experience, at your store? Linking your Facebook account to your mobile device will protect you by letting you know when this happens to help you be on top of things. Finally, by pushing the use of mobile engagement, you end up pushing for geo-tagging, check-ins and so on. This helps you monitor the “Where?” in your analytics, giving you several new opportunities for both traditional marketing and social media marketing campaigns.

- Don’t link Facebook to Twitter and LinkedIn

How many of your have seen posts on Facebook that have hash-tags, the initials “RT” and so on? Linking your Twitter account to Facebook (and vice-versa) is not the absolute worst thing you can do, but it definitely pushes your fans away from following your brand. This happens mainly because you retract value from each of your social media feeds by making them both identical (or very, very close) to one another. In other words, why would you follow a brand’s social media channels that shows the same content through Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter? One should be enough. But that’s not what we all want, right?
Social Networking sites are all different in nature. Each one should have a different tone, as well as different content and different value for your brand followers. And last but not least, linking social networking sites may give an impression of laziness.

- Don’t broadcast.

Use a natural, friendly and conversational tone. Just as if you were talking to your parents.
One of the most guiding phrases about social media that I can remember is that “It helps large businesses act small again.” This phrase could potentially summarize the whole point of communication via social media. In the Communications and Public Relations world, this would mean employing “Two-Way Symmetrical” Communication, which means there is communication going from one point to another and vice-versa. So contrary to traditional marketing techniques, posting effectively on Facebook requires a sense of creativity, light speech, truthfulness and more simply, friendliness. Facebook is about talking, listening, responding, commenting and even mentioning.

- Reward Your both your new and older Fans.

Rewarding your Fans is simple, effective and not very time-consuming. First of all, with a welcome page such as B-Liked, you can show your brand the way you want it. This is no secret. However, by setting the welcome page as a “Like Us” page (also known as a Reveal Tab), you can offer your Likers exclusive content from your brand. Everyone enjoyers the feeling of exclusivity.

Another way of rewarding your fans is, quite simply, by having fun. As a marketer, you must enjoy what you do in order to do it well and very little things are more fun then games. Some brands like to do Trivia questions, giving periods of 10 minutes for Fans to answer and then declare a winner. Also, companies such as The Hilltop Grill & Beverage Co. plays a raffle game called “A 100 for a 100,” which means that whenever the Facebook page another 100 Fans, they will draw for a $100 Gift Card.

Rewarding your Fans is easy, simple and very effective for ensuring their loyalty. Remember that Facebook is about word of mouth and good word of mouth is priceless. For everything else, there’s Mastercard.

- Don’t abandon your Fans

Streaming content from your blog or your website is definitely a plus to your social media engagement. That helps portraying your brand as a connoisseur among your industry by sharing news, events and so on. This is, as I’ve just clarified, a plus. By only fetching content your brand ceases to be human in how it engages its audience. Your Fans want to hear from you, not just of you, so make sure you don’t abandon them! If you do, they might be the ones who end up breaking up with you. None of us wants that to happen.

- Don’t be narcissistic.

What’s most curious about common sense is, that after all, it doesn’t seem to be that common. I can’t avoid being surprise when I see that a brand posts an update, likes its own update and comments on it before anyone else. As people tend to analyze human behaviour on Social Networking sites as if it were real life, people don’t like to see posts that lack modesty. Let others engage with your comments. If they don’t respond, then you must move on and try something different.

- Listen to what others are saying.

Though Facebook is meant to let your brand express itself, you should never cease to listen. Think about it, would you have a Facebook page talk to its crowd or would you rather have it responding to what people are saying, asking or complaining about on a page? If you agree that the second option is the best, well, then that means you understand one of the most important things about Social Media in general. Asking people about what they want, getting their feedback on your current promotions, etc. People talking about your brand is the best way to monitor the buzz your brand is creating. Remember that it’s not about quantity, it’s about quality. And it’s not all how much people say, but more about what they say.

- Rich content.

Maybe you think this is about common sense, but what is interesting about common sense is that it really isn’t that common. Your Fans have expectations that any brand or company has to meet on Facebook. Some people tend to think that not all fans are customers, which is absolutely undeniable. However, it is also undeniable that in “WorLd of Mouth,” reputation is everything.

Show a nice and different profile picture to your audience. Eye-Candy never loses its flavour, folks, and even fast food chains like McDonald’s are showing us some disturbingly delicious eye-candy.

On another note, Social Networks are getting better and better at integrating all sorts of media into them for your audience to feel engaged. Videos are simple and yet very effective. You have the option of pasting a YouTube link or uploading it directly via Facebook if you want your video to be stored and always accessible to your Fans.

Rich content is engaging is engaging and doesn’t always have to be linked to making more sales (sorry, marketing peeps). Ask about what their favourite seasonal beer is, or about which is their favourite among crayons and markers. You can even ask them about what football team they are cheering for this season or who is going to win the MVP at the NBA.

- Acknowledge the power of The Wall.

I have heard, more than on one occasion, that it would be great to always have an iFrame (B-Liked) welcome page as a landing page for your page. Sure, visitors and Fans would appreciate your design, your interactive tools (sliders, videos, social media feeds, flip books, etc.) or even the simple fact that you’ve made an effort to display a positively shocking version of your branding. However, Facebook works in a way that, by default, your Fans are automatically directed to your Wall the next time they visit your page after they’ve liked it. Some people feel skeptical about their B-Liked Landing page not being always the welcoming page for your Fans. Now, the million dollar question: Is this really a bad thing? Well, to put it simply, absolutely not.

First, think of all the changes that Facebook has had since its beginning. Layout-wise it has changed, apps-wise too and it even changed features-wise and yet, the Wall remains the primary tool for engagement. If you could talk to your favourite company knowing that you’ll get an answer coming from an actual person, you would most likely feel okay with writing them a couple lines, regardless of what your purpose is.

Think of your B-Liked Page as the door at your home. The wall is your living room where you sit, chat, make them feel comfortable, listen to what your guests tells you and share things with him or from him. There’s no question that after all these years of successful Facebook Marketing, the Wall, when properly used, is the greatest communication tool for addressing to your audience. But of course, you must first acknowledge its power to use it well.