Are you managing your company’s Facebook page and want to figure out more secrets to growing your audience? Digital agency Beyond recently analyzed more than 14,000 posts on the corporate Facebook fan pages of the world’s 100 most valuable brands to come up with one definitive strategy.
Here’s what they’re calling “The Facebook Four”; important guidelines for branded companies looking to develop (or iron out) a winning social media plan.
Here are their top four tips, from Beyond’s press release.
1. Provide fans with offers and discounts (42 percent of people friend a brand to get a discount or offer)
2. The reputational risk is lower than you think so don’t just focus on managing the negative (Just 5 percent of all comments are negative)
3. Fans are better at responding than brands so empower them (Fans are nine times more likely to help another fan than the brand itself)
4. Fans prefer images over video (Posts that contained a mixture of media types (e.g., an image and text) tended to receive the most likes)
They also polled about 4,000 consumers in the U.K. and the U.S. to see why they “like” a fan page to begin with. Our favorite bit of advice is this: Don’t try too hard. The study found companies that post frequently on their own page tend to have fewer fans — especially if they are commenting on a fan’s post.
This could mean fans feel uncomfortable on pages where brands seem to be monitoring the conversation, as opposed to pages where fans feel free to talk amongst themselves. Our tip: Post a question with every post, then sit back and allow your members to comment without interruption.
More key findings:
The top reasons people would follow a brand in social media include:
1. To find offers and discounts (42 percent)
2. Love of the product (33 percent)
3. To get latest news about the brand (24 percent)
4. To give them ideas on how to improve the product (12 percent)
5. To get better customer service (12 percent)
6. To complain (6 percent)
The study also found the most popular fan pages have a greater number of tabs running applications. In addition, a higher fan count was also correlated with images posted on the page, both by the company and by other fans (Admins: This means you should enable the feature that allows fans to post photos on your page).
We’ve posted many articles like in the past, like this one on 10 secrets to creating your brand’s Facebook presence, and this one on how to attract millions of fans with your fan page. We like this study though because it looked at a large sample of posts…and because there are only four tips we have to remember.
If you had to pick one tip to growing a fan page, which would you say is the most successful? Tell us below.
Post a Question with every post!
Comment by Rolando — November 23, 2010 @ 5:19 pm
Since the study was based on the 100 most valuable brands, presumably the brands already have tremendous name recognition. For brands with little or no name recognition, would the strategy be the same or is there something such lesser known brands should include or exclude from their strategy?
Comment by goldflowpoints — November 23, 2010 @ 5:39 pm
Hmm…the tip to avoid posting too much on your own page or responding to fans seems to go against social media best practices. Isn't engaging and interacting with our customers one of the main purposes of business social media? If we shouldn't interact on Facebook, do you think there are other social media outlets where interaction is more accepted?
Comment by Tara Parks — November 23, 2010 @ 6:47 pm
Show your personality! It's still about building trust and relationships – as a small business brand recognition comes from building those relationships consistently – and if someone trust you, they will trust the business, and the product.
Comment by Leanne Feel at Home — November 23, 2010 @ 9:50 pm
"Our tip: Post a question with every post, then sit back and allow your members to comment without interruption."
So I guess All Facebook is following their own advice… wish they would answer some of the comments though.
Comment by Eric — November 24, 2010 @ 4:59 pm
I have to disagree. If a fan page I like posts something, and I have a question about it, I don't want them to sit back. I want them to respond to my inquiry instead of making me feel ignored.
Comment by Reader — November 24, 2010 @ 5:49 pm
Thanks very much – will share this on my facebook page!
Comment by Stephanie Hunt — November 25, 2010 @ 2:15 am
Eye-appeal! Post a message and a good graphic (line or halftone) that supports the message. Just like "curb-appeal" in real estate, plate presentation in restaurants, you have to court all senses with your message.
Comment by Susan — November 30, 2010 @ 3:50 pm
Twitter is a great platform where a higher frequency then Facebook is acceptable. As a marketer, you want to communicate with your target audience through as many touch points as possible. Such as email, Twitter, YouTube, PR, Blogs, etc. Though each channel communicates differently with that audience, they all need to work together to influence your desired action (purchase, call, attend, donate, drive traffic, fill out a form, etc)
Comment by John Bejarano — December 21, 2010 @ 2:04 pm
Although Facebook offers a wide array of useful apps to assist in building a great FB Business page, I still find the tools offered by FB to be incredibly limited and often difficult to figure out and apply successfully. I have also found that many of these tools are unable to be used or appropriated by a wide audience of FB members. With regards to FB's poor functionality, I think that they have grown way to fast for there own good, however I do foresee that they will grow into their own boots eventually.
Comment by Stevo — May 9, 2011 @ 5:10 am