Go Beyond Facebook
What I am going to do int his first article is simply look at the Facebook fan page for this website and use it to explore Facebook pages in general and what they can do for your blog (regardless of niche).
Vlad tells me that apart from setting up the page he has not actually done very much with it least of all tell anyone about it.
This, for this article’s purposes, is fantastic! It means that we can actively measure what I am about to have said (keep on reading or you might miss it) and watch what happens as we implement the theory. Over the next few months I’ll revisit the topic of Facebook and representing your blog therein reporting on our efforts to go beyond just having a page and to actually getting traffic from it.
As I write there are 3 fans. In three months let us see if we can get over 100.
The page as it is
In other words we have settles down to making Facebook a very expensive feed reader. That’s fine but it’s not exciting enough to get the average Facebook user to do much by way of interaction.
According to something I was reading (somewhere) the average Facebook user fans two pages a month. That means to see growth in the page’s fan base some work is going to be needed.
Then the page must add value to the user’s day and if that was not enough it must actually be interactive enough to get enough interaction to show up in the news feed of the fans who have added it.
Facebook promotion is no walk in the park. Keep reading for an insight into using pages.
Go beyond what is missing!
The first thing that most people are going to say is missing is the fans. Look for yourself. (When I wrote this there were three of us)
Yet this is not what is missing but a metric that we are heading in the right direction to attract people.
What is missing is the variety of media that can be found on any page in Facebook.
Pictures
This is a tough one for a blog. Many blogs are of non visual topics and yet people are going to want to see that the blog has something of a gallery. Pictures break the page up and give the senses a change of pace.
So what can a blogger show pictures of?
Well for starters there is the writer or writers of the blog. Assuming that your names are known then some images of you serve to help the fan connect with you on a deeper level.
If images of oneself are not enough then there are diagrams. A well thought out diagram illustrating some key point from you recent blogging allows Facebook users to see that they are getting exclusive content.
Product shots – fans in your t-shirts. If you produce a physical product then this is an ideal space to allow fans to show themselves off with their newly purchased product. Mum’s, sisters and close friends might also agree to get the ball rolling.
Status updates
The Facebook page is like your personal Facebook wall and has the opportunity for you to speak with the voice of your blog. Give your fans something to ponder or shout out to a fan that has submitted some particularly interesting comments.
Let the Facebook users know that the page has a life that goes beyond publishing the blog feed.
Videos and links
Any article, youtube video or podcast by someone interesting from in or near your niche could be worth sharing on your page. The concept of linking out, adding value and being the resource for others that drives blogging applies here too.
Furthermore a good resource can be sued to connect with your Facebook friends and promote your page to them in a not-at-all aggressive way. Posts of all forms of link have a SHARE button which will post the link to your page and say “from NameOfYourPage” which gives you a little exposure and, so long as it is interesting, enhances your social capital as an interesting person.
Go Beyond what is expected
One thing that you will find about pages is that they have very little opportunity for energy saving automation, branding or free text. However with a little inventiveness you can get quite a lot out of them.
Take as my first example a little shameless self promotion: My very own fan page.
The image below is a screen shot of that page.
You might notice that the left hand side is almost all customized. This is because there is no limit on relative height for your profile image. Use this space to get the most out of the branding and impact space of your page.
In my case I made sure there were images of me that I could use to get an attractive thumbnail which you can see is a picture of a poster of me getting some attention from the lovely ladies (yes it is a genuine fake).
A little planning and you can maximize your impact buy controlling the image dimensions.
Additionally you might notice int his screen shot that there is a visual variety in the posts themselves. This happens to be because I posted a largish number of links recently and have yet to write a new blog post.
Talking of blog posts when-ever I write a blog post I know that my Facebook page (and twitter account) will be updated to. To do this I use NetWorkedBlogs which is a valuable application for Facebook using bloggers. To get the most out of it it is vital to make sure that 80% or more of your blog posts have an image in them that the NEtWorkedBlogs app can use. Keep the images varied and the page “wall” will look interesting.
You can also get added feedback onto your page if the NetWorkedBlogs application posts to other locations (like your personal wall or another page). This is because a like or a comment in any location is a like or a comment on all copies of the post. This too makes your page look interesting.
Going beyond the theory: The game plan
This is the game plan for the page over the next few weeks and months in roughly the order they will be carried out.
1. A taller image.
2. NetWorkedBlogs doing it’s thing.
3. Status updates, links and videos.
4. Invite fans.
Once this minor tweak is fully in place I shall revisit the topic and look at what else can be done to use Facebook to engage with potential readers and promote your blog. The results we are looking for as a result of good promotion of the Facebook page are:
1. More fans
2. More fan interaction
3. Traffic to the blog
Final thoughts
So far we have not looked at methods of getting from three fans to one hundred. However it is vital to get the foundations right or the rest will not stand up too well.
Have you made a fan page yet? What was it like and did many people “fan” it?
Matt, great post. I think I might want to fix how Go Beyond MLS syndicates posts to its wall on the Facebook. I think there might be duplicates resulting from use of NetWorkedBlogs and notes at the same time. I will discontinue to syndicate it via notes.
Thank you, Vlad. Yours is possibly a good choice regarding syndication – I find NetWorkedBlogs to produce a more pleasing looking post.
I agree Matt. Syndication via “Notes” on Facebook does not always produce an excerpt and publishes only a link.
facebook marketing will be dead soon coz facebook is craking markerters on the FB network*~;
This post is different from what I read on most blog. And it have so many valuable things to learn.