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Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Six questions to ask before launching a Facebook fan page

facebook logoIn yesterday’s post, I took issue with critics of a marketing campaign that directed those who saw the ads to the company’s Facebook page. If the company knew what they were doing—that is, they were being strategic—and the campaign achieved its goals, then it was a smart move.

One of the comments to the post, from Ed Lee, pointed to the Nestle dustup of the last several days (which Neville Hobson and I addressed in some detail on yesterday’s FIR. Between the two situations, I’ve been musing over the questions companies should ask themselves before launching a Facebook fan page.

These questions are doubly important in the wake of the Nestle debacle, in which Facebook members—many of whom had just learned about Nestle’s use of unsustainable palm oil sourced from rain forests at the expense of organgutan habitat—deluged the already-established Facebook page with vitriolic messages condemnation. Nestle did itself no favors when the individual tasked with responding to messages on the wall behaved rather rudely (for which he or she later apologized).

But even if your company isn’t a likely target of a coordinated activist campaign, you still may be thinking of slapping up a fan page, adding a logo and a few other items, then waiting for the fans to come streaming in—an approach sure to make you look lame and clueless to all but the least sophisticated Facebook users.

So before you start, ask yourself…

1. Who do you want to become a fan of your page?

With 400 million-plus people on Facebook, it’s easy to fall into the trap of responding, “Well, all of them.” Based on what your marketing goals are, you should be able to determine to whom you’re trying to appeal. In yesterday’s post, I suggested Uniball may have been seeking people who weren’t currently buying their pens but who fit the profile of “joiners” as defined by Forrester’s Technographics profiles.

Based on the goals you’re trying to achieve—more sales to a particular group, a home for raving fans of your product, a place for customers to stay in touch with the company and learn about training opportunities and other events or a place to address corporate social responsibility issues (for example)—you’ll craft the kind of content the audience will want crossing their news feeds.

2. What are these audiences likely to want from your fan page?

If your company produces or sells consumer products, Facebook members want to be kept updated about promotions and offers. It’s not likely that they want a personal relationship with someone in an organization that makes pens, for instance, or facial tissue. If you represent a local community hospital, on the other hand, it’s likely that people do want to establish a direct connection.

Be sure you’re targeting the content of your page to the people you want to reach and who are likely to spend time on Facebook.

One of the comments to yesterday’s post makes this concept explicitly clear: A fan of the product promoted with a giveaway exclusively on Facebook, wrote, “I wouldn???t go to the Uniball site unless I had a very specific need, e.g., refill info. But I see (their updates) in my (Facebook) feeds all the time. So, whether you???re a long-time fan, someone who likes to write (me), or a social media maven, you found their promotion, which you might not have done any other way.”

3. Who else might your fan page attract?

Nestle undoubtedly launched a fan page for people who bake Tollhouse cookies, love Nestle crunch bars or sip Nestle hot chocolate. As a longtime target of activists for a variety of reasons, it was just plain irresponsible to ignore the likelihood that activists would campaign the page.

What organizations or individuals might find your fan page an appealing place to take issue with your organization?

If your organization isn’t prepared for the glare of transparency, opening a public forum to comment from any of 400 million people probably isn’t a good move. If you’re ready to open up and have a dialogue with your critics, on the other hand, Facebook could be a very desirable venue where your authenticity and candor will be plainly visible.

Even after deciding to engage critics, you need to be ready for the behavior your critics are likely to exhibit. Will they see your fan page as an opportunity to express their more hostile feelings, are they organized and likely to undertake a campaign on your page, are they interested in a genuine dialogue, or is it a random group of unhappy customers looking for a place to vent?

4. Who will be tasked with the care and feeding of the page?

Too many fan pages are created, then abandoned, perhaps with the expectation that fans will feed the content while marketers and communicators occupy themselves with loftier activities. The fact is, people ally with a fan page because they want to be notified, in their news feeds, when the company has something to say or offer. You need to keep the page updated with the kind of content that led people to sign on in the first place.

5. Who will monitor the page?

Companies look particularly clueless when fans post questions or comments and nobody from the company responds. Have you appointed a community manager to oversee the page and to scan comments left to the wall and discussion groups? Is the community manager empowered to bring appropriate representatives into the conversation based on the topic and their areas of responsibility and subject matter expertise? Are employees empowered to participate?

6. Do you have contingency plans for unanticipated activity?

When something like the firestorm that engulfed Nestle occurs, you should already have a plan of action. Nestle might have been well-served by having its top environmental officer begin engaging, either on the Facebook page itself or somewhere else, with Facebook fans notified of the venue for the discussion.

You could do worse than to study General Motors social media director Christopher Barger’s actions when GM Next—a completely social website—was campaigned by an environmental activist group. When it became clear the organization was simply reposting the same messages in order to shout down alternative views, Barger shut down the one uploaded photo that was attracting the comments and moved the discussion to a series of chats featuring GM’s environmental chief and several others. The activist group was invited to participate and Barger was prepared to include their tough questions in the mix, but the chat forum allowed for a balanced discussion that welcomed all points of view.

This is by no means an exhaustive list—just six items that I’ve been thinking about in light of the recent Facebook fan page episodes. What other questions would you ask?

Comments
  • 1.Great thoughts, as always, Shel. I'd add one more: Why do you want a Facebook Fan Page?

    It's that "O" from Forrester's P.O.S.T. method -- "Objectives" -- that often gets overlooked. Too often it seems the reason companies launch a Facebook presence is because everybody's doing it.

    Don't get me wrong: I think Facebook offers something for nearly every business. But if you can't identify your goals, you'll either fail miserably or trump up the outcomes post facto to justify what you did.

    Scott Hepburn | March 2010 | Charlotte, NC

  • 2.Shel,
    Very good starter list. I have two additional thoughts:
    1) On "who will monitor" -- we've been recommending, at a minimum, that the social networking people/team have immediate connections into the following disciplines: PR (for potential reputation issues that may mushroom), Customer Care (for obvious reason), and HR (for internal dirty laundry that gets aired...and can be addressed in the space).
    2) To your contingency plan point, I've written an article for The Public Relations Strategist that begins to dive deeper into the common approaches to managing 2.0 (network/relationship) crises. Here's a summary from my blog, and the full article is attached: http://www.jamesjdonnelly.com/2010/03/analyzing-five-commonly-held-beliefs-about-2-0-crises/

    J.D. | March 2010 | Charlotte, NC

  • 3.Great points. And, these are many of the same points I bring up with clients when they want to launch any new social channel - Facebook, Twitter or otherwise. The truth is, for any social engagement to work, it takes work. These don't run on auto-pilot. They take a lot of care and feeding and turning of the content dials to really get the benefit out of them. And, defining what they benefit is will be unique to any brand when it gets down to specifics. If I had an add to this list, it would be to understand the content flow within an organization. These channels are fueled by content. Getting that content from one department, through legal and actually on the page, wall or into the feed can be a considerable task. Make sure you map the process flow before you turn on the faucet. Thanks - @bradmays

    Brad Mays | March 2010 | Dallas

  • 4.Shel, Good list and you've got several WHO questions covered. Other questions to ask:

    ? What will your Fan page be? A gateway, a community, just coupon links?
    ? What type of content will YOU share? What kind of content do you want FANS to share?
    ? When to share? How often? Why are you sharing? If social media is about transparency and relationships, the content shared needs to be because you thought fans would really like it, not because you're selling something.

    ? The biggest question: WHAT IF..? Like with Nestle or SeaWorld, what if X happens and the Fan page opens the floodgates? How will you manage that?

    A lot more questions, and still not a comprehensive list. Food for thought.

    Davina K. Brewer | March 2010 | Atlanta, GA

  • 5.Great thoughts. I see this all the time in our industry. Moreover, I think people spend time on marketing their business before doing the necessary and critical steps of getting their site to perform well once the user is present.
    While the marketing (FB Pages) are critical, what value do they have if when the user enters their site there is no conversion method in place. It's time that people begin looking at their website and website marketing as a process and not a single task.

    Matt Ward | March 2010 | Gardner Ma

  • 6.I would add to this list what is your company's contingency plan if the creator of the page leaves the company. The way it is now, a company's page is inextricably linked to the personal profile of the person who initially sets up the page. Hopefully at some point Facebook will address this; in the meantime companies should have some kind of plan in place for dealing with the possible eventuality that one day their page could literally walk out the door and out of their control.

    Maggie McGary | March 2010 | Maryland

  • 7.Good tips. Here's a question for you: Do you cater your content to the people who are fans of your page or to the ones you want to attract in the future?

    Jenny | March 2010

  • 8.Thanks, everybody, for the great additions. I'll probably post a follow-up (or maybe update this post) to incorporate your recommendations.

    @Jenny, I think that depends on a few factors. Uniball was able to focus its page on the people it wanted to attract, but that aligned nicely with what people are interested in from these kinds of companies: offers and promotions. Symantec is clear on its page that it's for system admins and the very high-tech community -- it's about upcoming conferences, links to information admins can use, a few contests and promotions, enough to keep commercial/enterprise users engaged (but there's nothing really there for the home user of a Norton product). In Nestle's case, if they KNOW they'll be campaigned, setting up a Corporate Social Responsibility page that is different from, say, the Nestle Crunch fan page, might help, although activists could opt to swarm any and all Nestle pages.

    Shel Holtz | March 2010 | Concord, CA

  • 9.To partly address Maggie's point, it is currently possible to add co-administrators to the page. Ideally, if the original creator left (or went on an extended cruise), the co-administrators would take over. However, the primary admin does tend to establish the voice of the page. If the co-admins aren't posting regularly, you still have a disconnect if the primary admin leaves.

    Kris Gallagher | March 2010 | DePaul University

  • 10.My issue isn't with being able to add additional admins; it's being able to remove the original creator if, say, that person leaves under bad circumstances or goes to a competitor or something. It would be great if the world were full of benevolent people who would never dream of touching a former employers Facebook page even though they still have access to it, but sadly that's not real life. The way things stand now there is nothing preventing a page creator who, upon being fired, decides that if he/she goes then the page should go to and deletes it. Or even if it's not intentional--say that person's account gets hacked so Facebook shuts it down--again, down goes the page, regardless of how many other admins there are.

    Maggie McGary | March 2010 | Maryland

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