I can’t tell you how disappointed I was when Facebook removed the “suggest to friends” feature that used to appear in the upper right hand corner of pages, right beneath the page’s profile image. That “suggest to friends” feature was a key ingredient in what made Facebook such a powerful force for linking together regular people with viral communication. A page admin can still suggest a page to their friends, but your fans cannot.
By giving people an easy way to share political causes, businesses, or bands, Facebook leveled a playing field that once had Bob’s Trucking at a big disadvantage when he competes with OmniTrucking International Corp LLC.
The ease of sharing things people find interesting on social media has propelled causes both serious and silly. Some that I’ve liked are the Facebook page “I say dude right before I say something moderately important,” So true! And the Twitter hashtag “OHYOUDIDNOTKNOW.” As in, “Those pants make you look fat #OHYOUDIDNOTKNOW.”
But Facebook is at the end of the day in it to make money, not to build a better world, so making it harder to grow a page virally helps them sell advertising. But not to worry – there are things that can be done about it. If your fans are dedicated they can still effectively invite their friends to your page. Give them these directions below either by posting the page, or even better with a mass email:
- Go to the page (if in an email, otherwise skip this step).
- Click “Share” in the bottom left corner of our page
- Click where it says “On your own wall” and change the setting to “In a Private Message”
- Type in the names of up to 20 friends who you would like to share our page with.
- Write a message encouraging them to join.
- Send the invitations
Sometimes well known individuals receive so many friend requests that they reach the 5,000 limit, at which point they cannot accept any more friend requests. They also cannot “like” any more fan pages. Personal Facebook pages were not designed to accommodate so many friends, so aside from the obvious problem of not being able to accept new friends, the page experiences a decrease in functionality.
If you find yourself in this situation, you may not know you can convert your personal page to a fan page. You have to work with Facebook to make this happen but I’ve done this before for a client and it was a pretty painless process. Once you transition your page to a fan page, you can once again continue growing your page and “liking” new pages.
However, if you do nothing, hundreds of friend requests will just accumulate in your inbox and you will NOT be able to move these people onto a new page. They might as well be sending these requests into a cyber garbage can. What that means for you and your business is that you have just given up those communication lines to potential customers.
There are three options for a business or campaign wishing to establish a presence on Facebook and people often become confused by the advantages and disadvantages inherent to each.
It’s not uncommon for campaigns or businesses to set up pages using Facebook’s personal page settings. This carries a couple of major drawbacks. First of all, it is not allowed according toFacebook’s policies so you run the risk of Facebook shutting the page down. Facebook policy states that only people (real human beings) may have Facebook pages. Your business cannot have a Facebook page. Neither can your pet (sorry Mr. Whiskers, but you can have a ball of yarn as a consolation). Beyond the possibility of your page being deleted for breaking the guidelines, another problem with the personal page approach is that a personal page can amass no more than 5,000 fans. You definitely want your page to be able to grow past the 5,000 mark.
Next, is the group. Facebook created groups as an avenue for like-minded communities to join together. One advantage of Facebook groups is their ability to send messages to members that appear in users inboxes. However, a major drawback to this approach also hits at the 5,000 mark. Once 5,000 members are achieved, the email capability goes away and the group becomes essentially useless. This problem bedeviled Barack Obama supporters when they created a group that began to grow exponentially but that they could not use to rally supporters. The experience was a big debacle and sparked an outcry against the 5,000 member “success penalty,” but the success penalty is still in place and is unlikely to ever go away.
The preferred approach being used now by savvy web developers is the Facebook fan page. Updates from fan pages appear in users feeds and can grow to infinity with no cap and no loss of communication ability at any point. Users join the page by simply clicking “like,” and interact with the page much as they would with a friend. Some, like lady Gaga, have built Facebook pages with followings in the millions.
A while back I decided I needed a better frying pan. Problem with my cheap cookware was that when your pans are thin and cheap, food burns more easily. I couldn’t seem to fry anything without burning it so I headed to Williams Sonoma to check out the pans and it turns out a great quality frying pan was available at a steep discount. I was stoked, so I went up to the counter and as the clerk was ringing me up she asked a new innovative question after asking for my zip code – she asked for my email address.
What a creative idea! For businesses that get a steady volume of customers, asking them for their email address at the cash register can earn a merchant thousands of new communication lines. These are previous customers who are likely to have an inclination to return. With a large volume of email addresses, you can run an email marketing campaign allowing you to let your customers know about new offers, sales and even ask them for input.
Those in the email capture business can charge $1, $10 or even $25 per new email contact generated. By simply asking at checkout, your business can gain an enviable email list, start an email marketing campaign and keep those customers coming back time and time again.
If your customers are proud to do business with you or eager to spread the word for a political or social betterment message, encouraging folks to put banners linking to you on their websites can dramatically increase your search engine ranking.
Now, some businesses may have a clientele of customers who are not eager to proudly display their patronage. Those who sell balding men hair replacement systems can testify of this – the whole point of the service is that customers don’t want anyone to know they’re losing their hair! Fortunately, this is an exception. From auto hobbyists to anglers to supporters of a political cause near and dear to their heart, you probably have a small army of willing and eager advertisers that you can easily tap into.
You can generate traffic to your site and also raise your search engine ranking with more incoming links by placing easily downloadable web banners on your website and encouraging your followers to repost these banners to proudly display their support much like the internet equivalent of branded t-shirts.
The key is to make the banners look attractive, communicate that they are there, and make them easy for folks to repost. Check out the banners we put up on our Suspend AB 32 site for an example. They are available in three different sizes, are pretty attractive if I do say so myself, promote a cause which is near and dear to supporters hearts and are easy to repost with the code located immediately under each banner.
People don’t like being marketed to. Most people are like me and tune out sales pitches if they’re made too overtly. My reaction to telemarketers is a perfect example. Now, I actually was a telemarketer for a short unhappy time so I probably should be kinder to them than I am, but maybe they should thank me for just providing encouragement to seek another line of work. I don’t just tell them I’m not interested, I like to play with them a little bit. Example:
Telemarketer: (In heavy accent) Hi, I’m Molly, can I speak to the decision maker in the household?
Me: The decision maker is gone! She left a note saying she doesn’t love me anymore and she’s not coming back! (click)
How do you explain my lack of receptiveness to Molly? Well, because I knew she was selling me something and my inclination is to defend my wallet and ward off the evil Molly!
People are much more receptive to open their wallet to someone they trust and that is why relationship building is so important. Social media can definitely be used for advertising purposes (and it should be!) but for these appeals to be effective, you must build a relationship. I like to mix purposeful communications with communications that help me build a common reality with my audience.
You can do this by mixing in jokes (but keep them clean) and upbeat banter. I even post music videos I find relevant to the overall content of the feed. These things greatly increase the value of your social media comunications to your audience.
For me personally, I enjoy Facebook a lot more than Twitter. I find it more interactive with users having the ability to comment on posts and show their agreement with the “thumbs up” feature. Nothing is better for the self-esteem than getting a whole bunch of thumbs up!
But the number two social media site, Twitter, should not be ignored. Fortunately, there is a way to link the two together. Facebook has an option that allows a user to link a Facebook fan page or even a personal page to a Twitter account. This allows you to reach people who prefer to use Twitter.
Once the two accounts, the only caveat you need to remember is that Twitter only allows 140 characters per post while Facebook allows much more. If you don’t keep your posts pithy, they will show up on Twitter with a “…” appearing when you have reached your maximum word allotment.
I have a Twitter account connected to a page I manage that is up to 500 followers even though I rarely check it. Nonetheless, because the two accounts are linked I still am able to provide a constant stream of content into the Twitter account.
Good luck!
I don’t get a lot of chances to go to the movies, but this weekend I saw Tron: Legacy for the second time – first time I saw the regular version with my dad when he came to visit me for Christmas and this time I saw the 3D version with a couple of buddies.
Me seeing a movie a second time is good proof it’s really good, at least as far as I believe.
If you go see this movie I believe you won’t be disappointed. Without giving away what happens, I’ll tell you that the action is nonstop, and the underlying message in the movie promotes some very noble ideals such as taking risks, not being afraid, accepting others’ imperfections, the love between a father and a son, and the potential to use technology to help us build a better world.
I hope they make a sequel!
Click here to go to the official site and watch an awesome preview!
