If you’re seriously interested in using Facebook for marketing, you may be heading for trouble.
The solution is easier than you think.
If you make class announcements, offer products or services, or in any way do marketing for your business on your personal profile, Facebook could remove your account completely.
According to the Facebook Terms of Service, you are not allowed to use your personal profile to post commercial messages. They say, “You will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain.”
So if you’re using Facebook for social media marketing, be aware that your Facebook account could get terminated (ouch!), and you’ll lose all the Friend connections you’ve made and all the content you’ve posted.
So what’s a biz owner to do?
The answer is Pages.
I’m going to be offering a free webinar next month on this topic and share my Page strategies and examples with you, but in the meanwhile I want to give you some tips to get you started.
(I’d love to know what questions you have about creating Pages and using them as part of your overall marketing strategy. Please post your questions here and I’ll answer as many questions as possible in my webinar.)
To get you all warm and fuzzy about Facebook Pages, here are some tips:
1. Think about the reason you’re using Facebook and Pages for your marketing. Typically biz owners say, “To communicate with and form a relationship with my audience,” and that’s one great reason.
But another great reason is to build up a fan base and then offer them a freebie in exchange for their email address, thus building your mailing list and allowing you to do greater email marketing.
Ask yourself, “What business and marketing outcome(s) do I want from my Page?”
2. What will you name your Page? You only get one shot at this, and you can’t edit it later, so choose wisely. If people know you and your name, then you might want to use your name. However if you’re also trying to promote your business name, or the type of work you do, then you might want to include this in your Page name. For instance, here are some I’ve seen lately:
- Karyn Greenstreet – Passion For Business (personal name plus business name)
- Nancy Marmolejo – Online Visibility Expert (personal name plus area of expertise)
- Louise L. Hay (personal name of a celebrity or someone well-known or when your personal name is your brand)
- The Big Brand System (product/business brand name)
- Solo-E.com: The Solo Entrepreneur Lifestyle via Multiple Streams of Income (business name plus tagline)
- Think and Grow Rich (book name)
- Breakthrough with Tony Robbins (name of a TV show, internet radio program, etc.)
3. What strategy will you use to get people to “Like” your Page? Here’s why it’s important: If people Like your Page, it will show up in their Newsfeed; but if they don’t Like your page, they’ll never be automatically reminded of the new posts you’ve added. One of your key strategies must be to get people to Like your Page.
My strategic thinking about Facebook Pages
One of my key Page strategies starts with a “Like Gate.” A like gate is software you place on your Page which allows you to offer exclusive content to people — but ONLY to those who Like your Page.
Remember, whatever you put on your Page Wall is visible to everyone, even those who have not Liked your Page yet.
So if you want to offer exclusive content to your true fans who have Liked your Page, don’t announce it on your Wall. Instead, use special coding or apps that allow content to remain hidden until someone Likes your Page…a Like Gate.
(Pages are different than your Personal Profile. In your Personal Profile, you are able to set Privacy Settings to indicate who could and could not see your Wall. In Pages, everyone can see your Wall.)
In my case, the free, exclusive offering to those who Like my Page is a 1-hour video training class on Personal Branding for Small Biz Owners:
When you go to my Page, watch carefully how the graphics change pre-Like and post-Like. That’s what a Like Gate will look like to the visitors of your Page.
My thinking is that I’ll first get my 3,900 “friends” on my personal profile moved over to become “fans” of my Page, by announcing the free Personal Branding video training and posting a link to my Page on my personal profile Wall. This should encourage people who want to continue to follow me on Facebook to Like my Page.
I’ll keep the fans happy with exclusive coupons, contests, free content, free classes, etc.
The power of marketing and communicating on Facebook
I think there’s more power than ever in using Facebook for staying connected to my community. My tribe seems to prefer Facebook over Twitter; I’ve tested it for a year and watched the results. There’s much more (and deeper) conversation on Facebook than on Twitter among my community.
Now I want to leverage that power to build it into my overall marketing strategy. How about you?
I have so many more tips and strategies to share with you about using Facebook Pages! I’m putting together a free webinar in July with my special guest, Michele Quinn, to share more great ideas. Please post your questions and comments about Facebook Pages here. I’ll gather up the comments and questions, and answer as many as possible in my free webinar.
Elena Rodriguez
I run a group page for a local networking group. We’ve got closet to a hundred members of the group, though only a core group of a dozen or so attend on a regular basis; the rest are floaters – attend once or twice a year (and a few never, but they stay in the group). Facebook activity has picked up recently – more people posting, commenting, responding to event invitations – it’s been a slow build over the course of 18 months, but momentum is picking up. Here’s the question (finally): for a community networking group, does a Group page still make more sense than a business Page?
I administer the page on a voluntary basis as a member of the group; I’m not trying to monetize the page. However, some of the members do sometimes try to promote their products, workshops, etc. on the group page. Would this make us run afoul of the Facebook gods?
Also, our networking group is free to join and free to attend most events. Occasionally we charge a small fee to compensate guest speakers who’ve traveled to reach us. (I’m talking 10 bucks or less.) Would that, being publicized on a Group page, anger the FB gods?
Thanks!
Karyn Greenstreet
Great questions, Elena. I’ll do what I can to answer them in the webinar next month, and if I can’t squeeze them into the webinar (it’s only an hour long), I’ll have to think of a way to get the answers to everyone. Hmmm…maybe a Facebook Group where I answer questions? 🙂
Jeff Meyer
I’m uncertain whether you can have a personal page and also a fan page. It seems FB’s terms of service don’t allow you more than one page. This would seem to present an additional problem if you want multiple pages for different campaigns. I’m not sure how to circumvent these without getting booted.
Karyn Greenstreet
Hi, Jeff,
As far as I know, you can have as many Pages as you want. (They used to be called “Fan Pages” but now they’re just called “Pages”). But you can have only ONE “personal profile” (the area you see when you first logon, where people have to friend you.). Let me look into it some more and if I find out any differently, I’ll talk about it in the webinar.
Helga Matzko
Good morning, Karyn.
There isn’t sufficient space to post my question, Karyn. Everything I could possibly learn would be the answer. I logged on to what I believe is your new site, wrote three comments but only one came through.
I believe that the more I try to understand this technology, the more uptight I become; still I’ll not give in until I get it.
Thanks to you, Karyn, sooner or later I know I’ll succeed.
Thanks for your patience. Helga
Karyn Greenstreet
No worries, Helga, we’re going to “start from step 1” with this webinar, really Facebook Pages 101. There is a lot to learn, but it’s best to deliver the teaching in small chunks with do-able Action Items. 🙂
Stan
great stuff, Karyn,
Thanks for sharing so much. I’m very much interested in your upcoming video. But I have a problem. I’m bad at remembering videos and audios. I’m a reader. I need things in writing to really benefit from something.
Anything you have in writing, maybe a transcript of your video, would be greatly appreciated.
Highest regards,
~Stan
Karyn Greenstreet
I’ll see what I can do, Stan, but Facebook Pages are very visual and you’ll want to see what we’re talking about. Hearing/reading won’t be as helpful as seeing the examples and the screens we’ll be showing.
Marci | Liberating Choices
I made a FB page a few months ago, but my Twitter followers are growing much faster. I find it hard to update both. I do get site referrals from my FB page, but not many people “like it.” So, your tips are great ideas. I’m working on having something free to give away!
Karyn Greenstreet
Marci, one things I’ve discovered about social media and social media marketing is that your “tribe” tends to gravitate towards one tool or another. For instance, my audience seems to hang out on Facebook more than Twitter. How do I know? I tested it.
For an entire year, I posted the exact same comments, links, posts, etc. on both platforms. The ratio of results (for me) was 100 to 1. Meaning: for every 100 comments I got on Facebook, I got 1 on Twitter. For every 100 click-throughs to my site from Facebook, I got 1 on Twitter. (The number of followers are roughly the same on both platforms, so it wasn’t about reach.)
Have you tracked to see where your clickthroughs and paying clients are coming from?
Helga Matzko
Hello Karyn:
There is obviously no end to your discovery of yourself. It’s wonderful and inspirational to read your new ideas.
My questions are as follows:
How does one create a page like that and How is it different from Face-book and friends?
Is this a new approach completely and eliminates the Friends page?
Given that I am not fond of Face-Book and throwing my ideas out into the big wide universe, is this specifically focused on business matters and discussions?
Is it used for advertising of classes, eBooks etc?
Is there a fee for creating a page like this?
I know that these are basic questions, but given my savvy with these things, they are really quite profound especially when I think of implementing something like this in the future!!!!!
Thanks, karyn. Good luck in your new venture. Helga
Karyn Greenstreet
These are excellent questions, Helga. I’ll see what I can do about answering them in the webinar for you. 🙂 Basic questions are GOOD! That’s what the Facebook “Page” webinar for small biz owners will be all about.
Marci | Liberating Choices
Karyn,
I re: “Have you tracked to see where your clickthroughs and paying clients are coming from?” I get most of my paying clients from insurance/EAP/word of mouth/my website. I don’t think I’ve ever had a paying client from Facebook, but do get clicks to my blog from FB.
I use my FB profile for personal use, and my FB page for my blog. Great question! Put my energy where the clients are…
Karyn Greenstreet
Or another way to think of it, Marci…put your energy/time/money where your goals get met. For example, say one of your goals is to get more comments on your blog. Even if you don’t get sales from Facebook, if people are clicking through to your blog post and commenting, then FB is a good place to be to hit your goal.