The best place to promote a fan page is through a Facebook personal profile. It’s a place where you can transition people to a place where they can read real estate related information.

People focus too much on customizing their page and not enough on creating content.

Use Facebook advertising to build your fan numbers. Use a QR code as the ad image. When people use the QR code you don’t pay for a click.

Customizations are wasted when people view the page on a mobile device.

Don’t post more than once per day. It takes away comments on Likes on other posts and knocks them out of Top News.

Tweet as much as you want.

It’s a rhetorical question. Most marketers know the importance of owning a brand presence. A brand web site gives a brand complete control over message and method; and that’s important. While ‘leasing’ space off Facebook is quick and easy that ease comes at the cost of a loss of control.[tweetmeme]

Still, maintaining web traffic when Facebook is gobbling up so much online attention, is difficult. And often traffic to a Facebook. That’s why Jeff Bullas says.

While Facebook is becoming the biggest relationship marketing tool for brands, it seems like that instead of increasing traffic to the company website, Facebook is actually absorbing it. Marketers across the globe are wondering whether their brand websites will disappear and if there will still be a need for an official website in five years. Will the users still visit the company websites or will they only use Facebook and apps to check the news and offers?

Using iFrames, Pages can now include many features that were previously difficult to achieve.

Bullas goes on to say that there are a number of ways marketers can develop synergies between a Facebook Page and a brand web site. These include:

1. Providing links back to the brand web site from tabs and pages
2. Using blog excerpts containing a “Read More” link to build traffic to the brand blog
3. Displaying links to other social media platforms
4. Giving people a reason to leave their email address on the landing page
5. Creating a Facebook competition which requires finding information on your website or blog. Announce the winner will be published on the brand web site (I love this idea).
6. Create a special Fans Only offer that is available from the web site.
7. Offer Fans Only specials available only from the web site
8. Re-think a brand web presence as a social media destination.

What are you doing to build your web traffic with a Facebook Page?

Here are the links I’ve shared during last week.

The Five Elements of Authoritative Content. It’s one thing to produce content but another altogether to produce content that moves people to action. Through personal reflection a writer conveys how information has affected them and how it’s changed or reinforced their point of view. It’s this reflection that resonates with an audience.

Charlie Sheen Not Dead, But Virus Spreads On Facebook. Charlie Sheen’s meltdown has been well documented so when news of his “death” surfaced many found it plausible, clicking on a link supposedly containing a video. The only problem was the link contained a virus affecting a large number of computers. The takeaway here is to be careful about clicking, especially on stories that haven’t broken on credible news sites.

Introducing LinkedIn Today. LinkedIn just released a newspaper style page that brings together all of the most popular content shared by connections and influencers. It has a paper.li/Flipboard feel to it but it does make using LinkedIn more interesting and interactive.

12 Things To Do After You’ve Written a Blog Post. There’s nothing really new here but I liked the reminder to tailor the comment made in a status update to the intended audience. Sharing an article a number of times makes sense too, so long as this is done with a little restraint to avoid becoming spammy.

26 Ways To Use Social Media For Lead Generation. One of the main problems facing C Suite managers is the ROI of social media. Many believe it’s a good strategy but the execs in the A and B Suite keep asking “where are the leads?” In reality this article doesn’t address the issue of gaining more direct customers but it does a great job of explaining how social media can make a brand more accessible and attractive to customers. The premise then is that brands that are well regarded will attract more business.

How To Get Thousands of Facebook Fans With a Single Video. OK, the headline is probably an exaggeration, but the point is well made. Videos are an important way to generate interactions on a Facebook Page and those interactions often lead to new Likes. That’s what marketers want, right?

Cracking The Facebook Code. This is an oldie, but a goodie. It describes the results of field research done using a new Facebook profile and outlines the ‘tricks’ to getting into the Top News tab. It’s no surprise that new accounts take a lot of work to get noticed. Surprise, surprise, interaction is the key.

EdgeRank: The Secret Sauce That Makes Facebook’s News Feed Tick. This article describes in almost mathematical terms why some posts make it to Top News and why others don’t. The concept of objects and edges provide a theoretical basis for understanding how the system ticks.

The Mystery of The Facebook News Feed: How to Optimize The Hidden Jewel of Facebook. Another close look at EdgeRank that makes uses the analogy of a diamond to explain the concept of objects and edges. The more edges (likes, comments, shares) an object (a raw diamond, a new post) has the more valuable it is and the more likely it is to find its way into Top News.

21 Creative Ways To Increase Your Facebook Fan Base. Adding a comment box on a Facebook landing page is a pretty cool idea. There’s not many doing this so it would really set a Page apart from the rest.

[tweetmeme]How-To: Add An iFrame To Your Facebook Page As a Tab. A detailed tutorial from Reggie at MyTechOpinion. The process doesn’t look that hard. For a great example of it in action check out the MyTechOpinion Facebook Page. There are lots of options to get the most from the new look Facebook Pages and this is one of them.

Image Credit: Mashable.com on Flickr.

The new look Facebook Pages were launched recently.  New look Pages take on the same look and feel as personal profiles. As of March 11, 2011, all Pages will switch over to the new style.

Admins can make the switch earlier. Once a Page is upgraded there’s no going back.

Here are the main changes and how to use them to your advantage.

Using Facebook as a Page

There are now two ways to interact with a Page as an administrator and both require the page administrator to log in using their personal profile. Once logged in the administrator can interact with the page as usual or switch to using Facebook as the Page. While using Facebook as a Page an administrator can:

• Post a status update, link or photo.
• Like and comment on posts made by fans as a Page.
• View red notifications of new Page Likes and posts created by fans.
• View a newsfeed of activity of all Liked Pages that works the same as a personal profile newsfeed with Top News and Most Recent filters. It provides a real sense of what’s happening within a community of Facebook Pages.
• Add posts and content as a Page on other Pages depending on that Page’s content sharing settings.
• Like other Pages. Liked Pages show in the left sidebar.
• Like and comment on other Page posts.
• Comment and Like interactions on personal profiles where that person has their privacy setting set to Everyone (a Page can’t create a wall post on a personal profile though).

Administrators have a third option and that’s to change their posting preferences so any posts or comments they make on the Page are posted from their personal profile and not the Page. This is a great way for an administrator to build their personal brand on a Page using a business name. Using this option allows the administrator to moderate the Page and participate in the community at the same time. It’s a much sought after change.

To use this setting click Edit Info > Your Settings > Posting Preferences.

Using Facebook as a Page is not available on mobile at this stage.

Making Use of Photos

Photos on Pages work the same as those on personal profiles. The most recent photos posted by the Page (not fans) are displayed as a photo strip at the top of the page. It’s important to make these photos work for, rather than against, the brand. To remove a photo click the ‘x’ in the top right hand corner of the image. Photos removed from the photo strip are still viewable in the Page photos section. The most important photo on any Page is the profile picture. These images can be as large as 180px wide x 540px high.

Featured Pages and Administrators

Pages can make strategic use of featured Liked Pages and Administrators. Featured Pages can be used (Edit Info > Featured >Edit Featured Likes) to highlight associated businesses and brands. For example, a real estate agent might set featured Pages for associated businesses such as settlement agents, branch offices and the Pages of key sales people. In some instances a Page may want to make use of a strong brand profile of one or more Page administrators. This is done by setting the administrator as a featured administrator (Edit Info > Featured >Edit Featured Page Owners) by which the administrator is shown as a Page Owner in the left side bar. It’s a useful way to for an administrator to provide fans with access to the real world contact behind the Page. Facebook Help section states:

Note: you need to be connected to Pages from your personal profile in order to feature them on the Page you admin.

It appears this is no longer the case.

It’s possible to add as many featured Pages as you want but only five will be displayed in rotation on the Page.

Tabs Are Now Gone

Tabs have now been removed and have been shifted into the left hand sidebar as navigational links. There are a maximum of 8 links displayed in the sidebar. To make things a little confusing these links are often called tabs for lack of a more accurate term. More about creating content for tabs using iFrames later.

The old Page blurb is now located in the Info tab.

Wall Post Filters

Facebook Pages are now filtered depending on a variety of factors. The default filter for first time visitors to a Page is Most Recent but returning recent visitors are shown the Top Posts filter. This means that returning visitors see those posts Facebook believe will be relevant to their interests, and that means different fans may well see different posts depending on the way they and their friends have interacted with the Page in the past. From Facebook:

People who like your Page may view a specific filter by default, depending on when they last visited your Page. For example, if they recently visited your Page, they will see Most Recent. If they have not visited your Page recently, they will see Top Posts. People who like your Page can choose to switch between the two views by toggling the viewing option in the top right corner of the Wall.

The only way all Page visitors see the same posts on a Page is if they all use the Most Recent filter and that’s the default for returning Page visitors.

Managing Spam

New Pages offer spammers new ways to create spam and that puts the onus on Page administrators to be extra vigilant. Facebook provide two options to help.

First there’s Facebook’s spam filtering tool, which places any posts by fans suspected of being a spam into a Hidden Posts filter that’s only viewable by Administrators. By checking this regularly administrators can ensure that any legitimate posts marked as spam are be posted to the wall. Leaving it for too long means the post content may be inappropriate by the time it’s posted to the wall.

Facebook also provide a Blocklist tool allowing administrators to proactively deal with spam content as it’s posted. Keywords can be added to the blocklist (Edit Info > Manage Permissions > Moderation) and anything posted to the wall matching these keywords is immediately dropped into the spam filter for an admin to either unmark as spam or delete.

The more important tool for combatting spam is email notifications. These can be enabled in the Your Settings section of the Page (Edit Info > Your Settings > Email Notifications). When someone posts on a Page Facebook sends an email notification to the Page administrator. There are five options for Page administrators: leave the post on the wall, remove the post, remove the post and ban the person or Page, hide the post, and report the person or Page for abuse.

It’s worth noting that each Page admin must choose their own email notification setting. There is no option at this stage to allow notifications to be sent to another email address.

Forget FBML, start using iFrames

An iFrame displays a page of content within another page. Facebook Page owners can now create pages of content on their own site that can then be iFramed into tabs on their Facebook Page. Dynamic content and email opt-in boxes are now much easier to integrate into a Page. iFrames therefore offer marketers exciting opportunities for delivering customised, branded content.

After March 11, 2011 the old FBML will be deprecated and, as such, is no longer the accepted standard. There are many deprecated HTML elements across the Internet, and these still work but are no longer considered best practice. There’s no great rush to replace existing FBML tabs (most are Welcome tabs) but many marketers are embracing the opportunities that iFrames deliver.

[tweetmeme]If you have any questions please add them in the comments section below.

Since the launch of the new Facebook pages spammers are running riot. Their latest trick is to use Facebook as a page then post spam links and comments on the walls of other pages.

Their goal is usually to entice people to click through and Like a Facebook page. But it’s an amateurish tactic and does little to build a credible brand.

Related to this tactic is posting the same offer on multiple business pages. Neither works.

Why?

If I use a page to post something on another page it shows up in the newsfeed of my page’s fans e.g. John’s Bricklaying > Bob’s Plumbing [Post content]. Many marketers believe that posting on another page wall will show as an interaction in the newsfeed of the other page’s fans. It doesn’t.

The other place the post shows up is on the wall of the other page. Well only sort of. With the latest round of changes to Facebook pages, the wall is filtered, and that often consigns low value posts to invisibility.

Here’s what the Facebook Help Centre has to say:

People who like your Page may view a specific filter by default, depending on when they last visited your Page. For example, if they recently visited your Page, they will see Most Recent. If they have not visited your Page recently, they will see Top Posts. People who like your Page can choose to switch between the two views by toggling the viewing option in the top right corner of the Wall.

Spam comments rarely attract many Likes or comments so it’s unlikely they’ll ever reach the Top News filter and that means that people visiting the other page for the first time won’t even see the post unless a new page visitor takes the time to change the filter settings to Most Recent.

Too bad!

Facebook has another way of dealing with hyper-activity. If I use a page to post or comment a lot within a short period of time Facebook will display only one of those comments – possibly the one that’s had the most interaction – along with the notation ‘X more similar stories’. Rather than placing repetitive, low value content into the fans’ newsfeed Facebook surfaces only one interaction and leaves it to the fans to discover more.

Of course there’s a delicate balance involved here. It takes time and effort to build a sense of community using a Facebook page. Brands with a massive following may find it easy but for most small businesses it takes work. Reaching out and building relationships with related businesses is an important strategy. But relationships don’t start with selling and they definitely don’t start with spam.

Instead of using your page to write “Please follow us by liking our page .. click the link!” on another page start with using your page to add a genuine comment on a post. Do this regularly. Participate in the conversation. Add value. Support. Encourage. Earn your stripes first.

[tweetmeme]Remember, this is another brand’s space. Treat it with respect. That’s how to build a well-regarded brand that will last the test of time.

Photo credit: pandemia on Flickr

Facebook announced some major changes to the Facebook Pages platform last week. Here is your one-minute guide to get you up and running.

Facebook Pages new profile

Page admins can now upgrade to the new page layout voluntarily until March 10, 2011. Pages not upgraded by then will automatically convert to the new profile.

To-do: Act now or do nothing, the result is the same.

Featured Admins

Now admins can feature themselves as a page owner in the left hand column. I expect to see a number of agents doing this to to build their number of friends. Admin staff will probably want to remain anonymous but principals will probably want to go public.

To-do: Go to Edit Page/Featured then choose the page owners you want to feature.

Posting as a person not the page

This is a big one!

One of the complaints agents had with the old page format was that admins became invisible. Posting as the admin meant posting as the page. There was no way out of it unless you created a second personal profile and that breeched Facebook’s Terms of Service. Now admins can chose whether they want page posts to use their profile or the page name. That’s a big advantage for agents wanting to build their personal brand, and especially for agents who chose a generic name.

To-do: Go to Edit Page/Your Settings. Decide if you want to post as your page name or as your personal profile. Make the appropriate selections.

Use Facebook as your Page

Another big one. No, make that really, really big!

Click on Account then Use Facebook as a page. Choose your page and now whatever you do on another page shows as coming from your page, not your personal profile. There’s also an option to do this from the righthand side of an upgraded Page.

To-do: Using Facebook as your page find the businesses related to yours. Hit the Like button. Now click the Home button and you’ll see all those businesses latest activity in your page newsfeed. Add comments to some of those items. That activity will show up in the newsfeed of those fans who like both pages. Newsfeed mentions are always good.

Page email notifications

Yet another big one. Close to the biggest in fact.

Why is it so big? One of the big beefs with the old page style was there was no way to know when someone wrote on your wall or commented on a post or photo without viewing the page and all its contents. It was a pain. Not anymore. Now, whenever someone does anything on your page you’ll be notified by email. Page admins can now respond to comments and posts in almost real time and that increases the level of page interaction. That’s always a good thing!

To-do: Go to Edit Page/Your Settings and make sure email notifications are turned on.

Categories

Page admins can now change their page category. That’s handy if the page was wrongly categorised during setup.

Impact level: low

To-do: Check page category and adjust accordingly.

Photo strip

[tweetmeme]The latest photos added to the page will be displayed by default. If you don’t want a photo to display hit the ‘x’ button at the top right hand corner of the photo.

To-do: Check photos regularly. Make sure they represent your brand values.

One of the Facebook pages I manage is causing me concern. It’s not growing. Despite sharing regular, locally relevant content the page is showing few signs of life.

The page currently has just over 130 members. This number hasn’t changed for sometime.

What’s the problem?

The first place I look is the content. Are the posts relevant to the target demographic? Initially I thought the answer was yes. I was wrong.

I took a close look at the page Insights. I was surprised by what I saw. Sixty-six percent of the page members were female. Most of those were 25-34 years old. That was unexpected. As the page was related to real estate I thought the membership would be evenly spread between males and females. Clearly that’s not the case.

Why does the page have a heavy bias to female membership?

My theory is that, in the early stages of a Facebook page’s life, the gender of the audience reflects the gender of the page administrator.

Why?

Well, in an effort to grow member numbers, admins often suggest the page to their friends. If their friends list is weighted to people of the same sex as themselves then the page suggestions will inherit that bias. In this case the original page admins were female, which supports – at least anecdotally – my theory.

Supporting this conclusion is the number of users who had hidden the page from their newsfeed. Although not numerically high the number wasn’t insignificant. People often hide a page from their newsfeed after joining as a result of an irrelevant page suggestion. Rather than simply declining the page suggestion – and risk offending the person making the suggestion – they Like, then hide. It’s not a good scenario for a Facebook marketer! My experience is that the number of Hiddens on this page falls in the acceptable range.

The next thing that took me by surprise was the location of the page members. Most live in Perth, quite some distance from where the business is located. Almost a third live in faraway Sydney. I’m not sure how that occurred. Subtracting a further 8 percent who live overseas I estimate that a mere 30 members live within the area serviced by the business.

What does this mean?

That’s simple. The content I’ve been sharing is irrelevant. Sure the posts were relevant to the area. But it wasn’t relevant to the majority of the page audience. My message was of interest to just a small fraction of the members.

In the first instance I was not sharing information weighted specifically to the interests of females. First mistake.

Second I need to work out why (mainly) females from Perth would join this page, then speak to that need. To confess, I’m at a loss as to what that might be. Perhaps you can provide some suggestions in the comments below.

Then there’s the question of growth.

What is working is the level of monthly active users. (Active users are the number of individuals who have viewed a page, interacted with content or consumed media in the last month.) At around 40 percent this page is performing pretty well. That tells me there’s solid intest in the page. But that interest isn’t converting into Likes and comments, which would drive the page name into friends newsfeeds.

Where to from here?

What I think is critical is how well the business leadership can empower their team to get involved with the page. It’s going to be important for them to convey a compelling reason for the staff to become actively involved as a means to build their personal brands. If this doesn’t happen the page will lack a sense of local community. But if they can turn the page into a community bulletin board there’ll be no stopping it.

The Altimeter Group recently conducted research gleaning input from 34 vendors, agencies, and experts, to determine success criteria and develop a roadmap for Facebook page best practices. They identified Eight Success Criteria for Facebook page marketing, and then tested the maturity of 30 top brands across six industries.

Their evaluation revealed that brands fell short – nearly half of the brands reviewed (14 out of 30) did not fully leveraged social features to activate word of mouth, the hallmark behavior of social networks. Within this immature landscape, a few brands were on the right track to successfully harnessing Facebook page marketing. Brands like Pampers, Macy’s, Kohl’s, and AXE increased engagement and activated word of mouth through advocacy and peer-to-peer interactions, or solicited business call to actions that result in transactions.

A recent arrival in my inbox was a missive from Facebook. In short it warned fan page owners to monitor and control what gets posted on their Page wall. Their directives include:

1. Limit what others can post on your Page: If you go to edit your Page and select “Wall Settings,” you can choose what types of content fans can post to your Page under “Fan Permissions.” For example, you can prevent people from posting videos or photos if you like.
2. Remove content: Administrators have the ability to remove any content from a Page. To do so, just select “Remove” next to the piece of content.
3. Ban fans that are being abusive: If a fan of your Page is repeatedly posting inappropriate content, you can go beyond reporting the fan by banning them from your Page by following these instructions.

I tell you what, Facebook, how about finishing the job you started instead of wasting time with such obvious suggestions. Anyone who’s had anything to do with Pages will know they have some glaring problems. Get the following done and make Pages live up to their hype.

1. Change the settings so that the person who created the page can be deleted as an administrator. Face it, staff move on. So do consultants. I don’t want one of my opposition being the administrator of my fan page.
2. Provide notifications to Page administrators when fans interact on the page wall. It’s a no-brainer.
3. Allow Page administrators to interact as fans. Let’s face it sometimes we wear both hats. Legitimately.
4. Allow Pages to be renamed. Let’s say I change my business name – or get married and take on my partner’s name as often happens – why force me to hassle my fans to switch over to a new Page, or even worse, to continue building a brand that’s no longer relevant.  Sure, restrict the number of times a Page can change names, but, please recognise that at times it needs to happen.
5. Allow genuine competitions that require fans to write on the wall. These types of competitions happen in the real world you know.
6. Provide “add a note” for Page suggestions. Rather than a suggestion appearing in a person’s notifications it would then show up with a note – possibly in their inbox – explaining why the Page suggestion was made in the first place.
7. Change the sharing options to give Page administrators the ability to share an item direct to their Page wall.

What else do you want Facebook to add to their Pages to-do list?

On Facebook yesterday I received yet another suggestion from a “friend” to join their fan page. It was the umpteenth such suggestion. As I was exhausted from hitting the Ignore button I decided to send a direct message. It said simply:

Hi Kim (not their real name),

I’m really happy to be your FB friend but would you mind not sending me invites to your FB page.

Thanks

Peter

Sure I could have gilded the lilly, wrote some crap about how lovely their page looked and how I just can’t possibly add another page to my newsfeed. Perhaps I should learn to be more diplomatic. Instead I chose instead to state clearly the action I wanted them to take. Their response was to de-friend me. Instantly!

It was an immature response. Rather than simply respecting my wishes their choice was to cut me off completely. It’s not how the “social” part of social media works.

There are a couple of lessons here for Page owners. First, don’t piss your friends off by constantly inviting them to join your page. Sure, suggesting your page to friends builds fan numbers. It’s a proven strategy. But once you’ve invited them, back off. Don’t push it too far. If you do you’ll start alienating people.

Second, if you get a message asking you not to send page suggestions don’t take it personally. Respect your friend’s wishes and look for other ways to grow your fan base. Remember, thick skin good, thin skin not so.

There are ways Facebook could help page owners. First, they could add an “invite pending” indicator to a friend’s profile pic. Currently when suggesting a page to friends those who are already fans are displayed with a slightly opaque profile pic and can’t be added to the invite list. Facebook could add a similar function with the invite expiring after a period of time, say a month or three.

Facebook could also add a “block page suggestions from this person” button. This would mute out serial page-suggesting admins. They’d never know their message wasn’t getting through. But then again they probably wouldn’t care.

This article was originally posted on The Real Estate Marketing Maven

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/barelyfitz/ / CC BY 2.0