5 Things Brand Should Avoid On Facebook

Creating a social media program has become an important strategy for a vast number of companies. Over the last few years, Facebook has become the premier social network and holds a great deal of power as a medium for marketers. It is important that the social media giant is used in the correct way to gain the maximum benefit.

With this in mind, here are a few things companies should not be doing on Facebook:

1. Avoid Talking Constantly About Yourself

Do not spend the majority of your time talking about how great your company or brand is, and then the rest of it trying to encourage sales of your product. Consumers are likely to find this irritating and you are likely to lose many of your fans (”likes”) very quickly.

2. Remember To Be Social

It is far too common for there to be one person who handles all the social media tools including updates, pictures, responses, videos etc. By allowing other members of your team to contribute, you’ll not only lessen the chance of content becoming stale, but you will also give free rein to some of your biggest helpers.

It is important to remember that a company’s employees are its greatest asset, so it is good to encourage them to interact and therefore increase the chances that you build a stronger team. Additionally, they all have their own networks of Facebook friends who will be more likely to engage with your company if they see one of their friends are providing comments.

3. Nobody Wants A One-way Conversation

Facebook is about socialising and communication should be a two-way street. When there are only positive comments appearing on your Facebook updates, it becomes obvious that every comment is being closely moderated. If you want to increase your fan base then make sure you are likable, open and honest. Your fans want to communicate with you so allow them to do this.

Do not be fooled into thinking that by restricting the permissions for users you are going to prevent anything negative from being posted. This is incorrect. It will simply be posted somewhere else, maybe at a later date when you cannot do much about it. However, in the case of comments like spam and vulgar language, these need to be removed from your feed but make sure you exercise your right to monitor comments in a wise manner.

4. Don’t Forget To Count The Cost

It is advisable not to do a half-hearted job when it comes to the implementation or administration of your account. If you post constantly for a few weeks and then fall off for a week, you risk losing a lot of the momentum you previously gained. Users enjoy interaction, and if they click on your fan page and it looks like it has been abandoned more than once, it is likely that you will have fans starting to “unlike” you. Consistent activity is necessary to get good results.

5. Think Before You Post

You will never be able to please everyone who likes your brand on Facebook, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t attempt to achieve the opposite. Before updating your feed, consider whether you will be alienating or offending a segment of your fan base.

You may get a lot of publicity, but not the kind you’d like. The good thing is that Facebook fans can be forgiving as long as you apologise and make things right very quickly.

Remember – Relevancy and Recency are Key to success.

If you would like any help with maximising the effectiveness of your social presence, then why  not contact us to have a discussion.