Facebook fan pages are increasingly being used by businesses, but just because a business or other organization has a Facebook fan page doesn't mean it's being used well. In fact, I think I see more that are missing it than those getting it right.
So how do you know if your fan page is being used well? It's pretty easy actually: is anyone talking to you? If your "fans" are talking to you, you have a great fan page like the ladies over at E-Mealz. They're doing a great job with their fan page. If nobody is talking to you, then your fan page isn't living up to all the Facebook hype, is it?
How To Spot A Good One (And A Bad One)
Facebook makes it easy to spot a good fan page over one that's not so good. All you have to do is look at the images. If all you see is the company's own logo down their fan page wall, they're probably not doing a good job with their page. What that means is that nobody is voluntarily talking to the company.
Facebook is a conversation tool, but so many people miss this. If you're not talking with people, and they're not talking to you, you have a problem...and Facebook isn't your problem, it's your use of Facebook.
The 3 Levels of Facebook Engagement
There are three levels of engagement on Facebook with your fans. One is the best. One is very good. One stinks. They are:
- Proactive Engagement: This is the best form of engagement. The E-Mealz fan page shows a vibrant, active group of customers talking to the company. They're asking questions, making suggestions, getting problems resolved, and telling them how much they love the service. It's proactive engagement and very few organizations seem to be achieving this level right now.
- Reactive Engagement: This isn't bad a bad form of engagement at all, it's just not the best. Consider it an A-. If you only get reactive engagement, that means people are responding to your updates in the comments or are giving you lots of "likes" on your updates. The good news people are paying attention, and that's really what you're going for. Sure, they're reacting to whatever you say or do, but at least they're engaging you. Moving them toward proactivity is all that's left for you.
- Inactive (and possibly uninterested): This is where your "fans" are revealing that they are, perhaps, not really fans at all. In my observation, many businesses on Facebook fall into this category. The problem may be that the company assumes people care more about them than they really do. Or maybe the company isn't very conversational and therefore doesn't warrant conversing with. Whatever the case, the fans are not engaged.
The question then is this: are your "fans" really your fans? Why would they fan your page and not connect? There are lots of possibilities for this, but it requires some research into how the page has been used. Start with these questions: Are most of the fans company employees and vendors? Were the fans enticed to become fans in order to win a prize several months ago? Are you talking about things that have no value to them or just telling them things they may not care about?
The bottom line is this. Social media is a two-sided coin. Conversation is on one side of the coin and content is on the other. In social networking sites like Facebook, you must lead with conversation. That means you need to get people talking to you. You're probably going give a lot more than you're going to get for a while. You need to spark conversation. Show them something about your business they might actually find interesting. Give them something valuable and memorable. Add value to their day. After all, until someone starts talking to you, you're just talking to yourself...and that's not what you signed up to do on Facebook. Be a rabid conversationalist and then you'll see Facebook start to work for you the way it can.