I�m inclined to believe the latter.
As a matter of fact, facebook pages are a wonderful medium to create an engaging experience with your audience, but the problem is that, setting up a page alone does not take you any closer to this goal. Setting up the page is probably the first of the 25 steps involved in creating the platform on facebook.
So, let�s dig deep in to the process of creating facebook pages and learn how we can make engaging comunities via facebook.
1. First off, create a strategy in place
One of the biggest mistakes we all make is to not have a strategy in place while creating your social media profiles. Some folks think about a strategy after creating a profile, which is alright, but the thing is, if you had a strategy in the first place, then things would become more transparent and clear. You would know what theme to follow, what to communicate and what not. So having a proper strategy in place, even before you set up your profiles is always recommended.
2. Find out what your ultimate goals are
One simple question to ask yourself before creating a facebook fan page is � what is the purpose of having a community ? Is it brand recognition or user engagement ? You got to have the answers ready. Because everything else depends on what your goal is and what you�d like to achieve. If you�re unclear on this, then going ahead, things will look more vague to you.
3. Figure out a content strategy
Creating a content strategy s very vital for social media. A content strategy not only means what your communication content is, but also what you need to avoid from it. A good content strategy will have a flow and a clear idea on where to start, how to warm things up, what the peak points are and where to stop in the whole time frame of events. A content strategy should also take care of designing your content and what the medium is � images, videos, text, podcasts ? Figure out what fits your audience and what leverages your brand, rather than what you�re comfortable with.
4. Figure out how you can bring your brand in-context with the content
When you think about content strategy its easy to get carried away. Funny videos are a very popular item with people, but that doesn�t mean your brand gains anything out of sharing them on your facebook pages. Heck, it might even harm you. So, what�s important is to know how to introduce your brand to users in context. Gone are those days when you could shout about how awesome your brand is on the face of users. You have to deliberately figure out ways to make your brand interesting and cater it in a non-obtrusive way to people. The fact is that even if your product is really helpful to an user, they wouldn�t accept it unless you convince it in an entertaining/educating way.
5. Figure out how you can motivate your audience
Motivation necessarily doesn�t mean giving them good content. Its much more a complicated thing in reality. Its about finding out what their carrot is, and how you can help them get it through you. There has to be a purpose why one must like your brand or join your community. Give them a good reason to like you, that is all it takes.
6. Find out how you can measure your brands performance
Probably the most important step in the whole exercise is to find out ways to measure the campaigns effectiveness. Based on what your goals are find out how you can measure the key metrics ruling out the noise. There are several ways to do this, but every campaign requires a customized approach that will decide the effectiveness of the campaign.
7. Figure out what your audience need from you
Mostly, we set up a facebook page for a single purpose, lets say to increase online sales of your hosting packages. While its okay to stay focused on your objective, it might run stale after some time, since sticking to one single goal does not give you much options to play with. I�d rather take the ultimate goal to the backseat and do all that I can to build up a good experience around it. Lets say, in the above example, although my goal is to get sales leads, I might consider doing reviews about competitors, feature comparisons etc and do things that makes sense from a buyer�s perspective. This is really important. Imagine yourself in the audience�s shoes and deliver those things that might interest them even if they don�t make sense to you in business perspective.
8. Keep ready a �Funnel system� in place
I always speak about the �Tentacle strategy� where one must keep ready a strategy to attract people�s attention and grab them towards you, while also keeping ready a Fallback mechanism that will take care of the attracted visitors while they�re on the plate. The funnel system is pretty much similar. To split it up, 80% of your efforts should be around grabbing attention, and the rest about serving them while they come to you. Why many campaigns fail is because they do a lot of �attraction� part but don�t bother about the �serving� part. Even though the serving part is only 20% of the whole equation, its as important as the attracting part. Keeping a funnel system takes care of this. The funnel system basically should have a large open mouth � which is the attraction part. It represents all your strategies to grab potential clients/user�s attention, while the narrow path down represents the path a user takes post the attraction/visit phase down to the action part. Its easy to remember and the equation of 80% attraction � 20% action makes sense in this perspective.
9. Figure out how you can deal with negative comments
If negative comments are something you�d not want to hear in your campaigns, then I�d say that you�re not ready to do this thing. I encourage negative comments (well, to a controlled limit). The reason ? One negative comment is worth hundreds of praises. The mileage you can get from a negative comment is immense if you deal with it properly. But ignore one, and you�re spoiling the whole show. However, I do not agree that all comments are attention-worthy. Some are ignorable, but you have to figure out which is which � this is the important part.
So there it is. Nine simple tips to help you create engaging facebook pages and communities. Remember, there are two parts to this � strategy and execution. Here, I�ve spoken more about strategy than execution, but remember that both are equally important as the other.
