Inside Facebook

The following is an excerpt of entry in our Facebook Marketing Bible. The full version contains walk-throughs and strategies  for hiding comments and banning users.

As your Facebook Page grows in size and stature and begins to attract a healthy number of fans, so too will the level at which those same fans interact with your Page. Highly engaging Pages can quickly blossom into a valuable community, but the messages posted to your Wall by fans will not always be positive.

Here we’ll provide walk-throughs of Facebook’s native Page moderation tools, and explain how to execute a moderation strategy that protects your brand but doesn’t silence discussion.

Moderation Strategy

Popular Pages can and should expect customer complaints and criticism, irrespective of the quality of product or service being provided. Examples of situations that could lead to customers submitting negative posts or comments to your Page’s Wall include:

• Delays in shipping a product
• Faulty or damaged products
• Poor service or perceived rudeness
• A public relations crisis

Complaints beget complaints, with customers who might previously have said nothing now speaking up when they realize that other people are suffering the same problems. This behavioral cycle will quickly repeat itself, and a Page Wall can move from positive to negative in a matter of moments.

Overall, you need to remember that the medium is social: customers expect to be able to have an open and honest conversation about your company and the service they experience. Any action you take, from hiding comments, to replying in public, to banning users, is going to be judged as representative of your company. You must balance the natural desire to keep your Page as positive as possible with maintaining credibility among your fans. This can sometimes mean leaving negative comments public.

Page Permissions

Facebook allows Admins to change the permissions on their pages, giving them control over a number of different aspects such as country restriction, age restriction and the posting ability of users, plus word and profanity blocklists.

To edit your Page’s permissions, select Edit Page and then click on the Manage permissions tab on the left sidebar.

Admins managing very popular pages should consider the use of certain keywords in the Moderation blocklist – for example, the names of competitors or overly negative words. When users try to include blacklisted words in their posts these will automatically be marked as spam and moved to the Hidden part of your Page’s wall (more on this in a moment). The Profanity blocklist works in the same way (although Facebook doesn’t list which words it is looking for) and should also be adjusted accordingly.

Hidden Posts – Your Page’s Secret Wall

Facebook will analyze posts made to your Page’s Wall and automatically filter out spam (or what it perceives to be spam), which you can view in the Hidden Posts link on the left sidebar of your Page.

Admins can also move posts to the Hidden part of the Wall by selecting the Hide Post option from the drop-down menu accessible via the options cog on each post.

Popular pages therefore can expect to manage two different Walls – the public and freely-readable main Wall, and the private and (mostly) Admin-only Hidden Wall. Posts can be moved freely between each wall.

Hidden posts will no longer be visible to users reading your Page’s Wall, and the original poster will not be aware that their post has been hidden so they don’t think to immediately repost.

It also important to be aware that Facebook’s spam filter is a little inconsistent, and will trigger a number of false positives that will need to be moved back to the main part of the Wall. It’s good practice to regularly peruse your Hidden posts and unhide any posts that have been mistakenly labelled as spam by Facebook.

The full version of this article, complete with walk-throughs of the comment hiding and user banning tools can be found in the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s complete guide to marketing and advertising through Facebook.

The following is an excerpt from our Facebook Marketing Bible. The full version contains detailed strategies for dealing with each type of disruptive commenter and three more key tactics for making your Page an inviting community.

A well-managed Facebook Page allows businesses of all sizes to build a large and engaged community of fans, many of which can and will become loyal customers and advocates of the brand if nurtured correctly and consistently.

As your Page grows in popularity and starts to attract hundreds and thousands of Likes it will also begin to see unwelcome attention from the less-savory members of larger online communities – critics, trolls and spammers. While this is a largely unavoidable side effect of popularity, Page administrators can take steps to ensure that these kinds of members are controlled and removed.

Know Your Enemy

Critics - Critics are commenters that hurt a brand’s image by filling its Page wall with negative assessments of the brand’s identity, products, or services. They can be difficult to identify and manage, as they can veer between being your biggest fan to most outspoken naysayer from one moment to the next.

Trolls - A troll is someone who consistently posts inflammatory, negative and disruptive messages to your Facebook Page, with the sole intent of provoking an emotional reaction amongst the other members of your community. Trolls differ from critics in that they usually have no actual interest in the brand’s products and services, but are simply there to cause problems.

Spammers - The rate of spam that is posted on any given Facebook Page is exponentially linked to the number of Likes that it has. While Facebook’s spam filters will do their best to identify and move spam to your Wall’s hidden wall tab, this is at best a hit-and-miss affair and some spam will get through

Admins can employ the following tactics to ensure that their Page is optimized to recognize and manage problem users.

1. Create a Customized Page Rules Tab

One of the smartest things all Facebook Page Admins can and should do as soon as possible is implement a customized Page rules tab that clearly lists the behavioral expectations of members of the community.

Coca Cola’s House Rules is one example of how this can be done.

This tab will give you something to point to if users ask why they or someone else was banned. The tab is also likely to make all community members who see it more civil.

2. Take It To Email

Facebook Pages do not provide any kind of private messaging system, but sometimes a customer needs to be engaged on a one-to-one basis, and the best way to do this is to recommend directly to them that they contact you via email. This has numerous benefits – the customer can speak more freely, you can provide a more personal level of support and if the matter gets heated it doesn’t have to be a public affair.

If you feel that a customer has a legitimate enquiry but that public correspondence might become disruptive to the Facebook Page or even damage the reputation of the brand, it’s good advice to move things to email as soon as possible. Reply to their comment with your customer support email address or another email address they can reach you at and kindly ask them to follow up with you via email.

If you have made the decision to have a brand presence on Facebook then the business of moderating your Page needs to be taken seriously, with the correct level of resources made available to meet the expectations of your fans as the Page grows in size and stature.

The rest of our strategies for handling disruptive commenters and improving the civility of conversation on your Facebook Page can be found in the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s comprehensive guide to marketing and advertising through Facebook.

The following is an excerpt of a complete article available in our Facebook Marketing Bible.

A well-managed Facebook Page will rapidly become your brand’s second home on the web, both in how well it ranks on Google and other search engines, but also (vitally) in the amount of time your customers spend reading and interacting with your content.

Indeed, because the average user now spends upwards of 30 minutes each day on Facebook, there is a far greater chance that they will consume your brand’s message on the network than anywhere else, including your main website. This level of engagement can be further improved by adding key resources to your Facebook presence, driving repeat return visits to your Page.

One of the best ways to do this is to build and implement customized functionality right onto your Facebook Page. In this article we will look at the different ways in which this can be done.

What Is A Customized Tab?

Every Facebook Page has a series of tabs that are accessible on the left-hand sidebar. The default options available for all new pages are the Wall, Info and Photos. Facebook allows the administrator of any Page to add extra functionality to their Page, most of which become a new tab in this sidebar. All tabs, apart from the Wall and Info, can also be removed.

Additional tab applications developed by Facebook, third-party developers, or your company can be added to Facebook Pages. Official apps built by Facebook include Video, Links, Events and Notes, each of which will appear automatically in the left sidebar once used and populated with content.

Custom tabs can be developed in-house by brands. In most cases, though, they are licensed from third-party service providers a la carte or as part of a Page management platform. Some developers also offer tab applications that can be used for free.

Prior to March 2011, tabs could be easily customized on Facebook using the popular Static FBML application. This has now been phased out and tabs need to built as an actual application via the Facebook Developer’s site. The content is then embedded into a tab on your page via the use of an iframe.

Many high-profile brands on Facebook have implemented customized tabs on their Pages to raise the level of fan engagement. We’re seeing leading brands employ a variety of techniques that include marketing fundamentals like a strong offer and clear call-to-action, as well as more advanced methods like embedded games and promotions that bridge online and offline.

A step-by-step guide on how to create your own customized landing tab, and further analysis on live implementations from top brands on Facebook, is available to members of the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s comprehensive guide to marketing and advertising your brand on Facebook. Learn more about the Facebook Marketing Bible here.

The following is an excerpt. The complete article, available in our Facebook Marketing Bible, includes more key differences between Twitter and Facebook, Twitter mistakes to avoid, and how to optimize your marketing strategy for the two platforms.

Facebook is not Twitter, and Twitter is not Facebook.

For veteran users of both platforms, this statement is well understood. But for marketers and brands new to either network, or for those with an extensive level of experience in one but not the other, the differences are not immediately apparent.

In this article, we compare brand Twitter Profiles to Facebook Pages, looking at the ways in which one is different to the other and the pros (and cons) each platform offers to the marketer.

How Do Facebook and Twitter Compare?

While the marketer’s aspirations for both platforms are similar – namely, to build a large and engaged audience to raise brand awareness and drive footfall – the manner in which each network and audience is approached and cultivated needs to be tailored specifically to that network.

Facebook and Twitter have many apparent similarities, both in functionality and in jargon, including:

• Usernames
• Profile Pages
• Avatars
• Status Updates
• Tagging

Both platforms also provide an outstanding way for businesses to market themselves to users, and offer first line customer support. However, the use of similar terminology aside, the ways in which these features are both implemented and received are often very different.

Size

Perhaps the most important difference between Facebook and Twitter is the size of the respective networks. As of July 2011, Facebook said it had over 750 million registered monthly active users. Twitter is cagey with the release of its user data but recent estimations put the platform at somewhere between 200 and 300 million users. However, these numbers only reflect registered accounts — the active user count on Twitter is considerably smaller. For example, third party measurement firm comScore shows it reaching 139 million unique users worldwide in May.

Post Frequency

Popular Facebook Pages typically post one or two updates every day. Whether a Page’s fans see that post is determined by the Facebook news feed EdgeRank algorithm. This is designed to show users the most relevant posts in the default Top News tab of the news feed, though users can also select to view a more comprehensive stream of updates in the Most Recent tab of the new feed.

The goal for marketers with Facebook Page posts is to attain the most Likes and comments, which increase a post’s EdgeRank, and drive re-shares of posts, which expose branded content to the friends of fans. Therefore, marketers should compose posts that they think will be the most engaging for their audience.

Popular Twitter profiles typically post much more frequently, sending out closer to a half dozen tweets a day. Twitter’s stream displays tweets in strict reverse chronological order. A profile followers are therefor only likely to see the tweets if they’re reading Twitter within a small timeframe after an update is published, or if it is retweeted by a high volume of people they follow.

The goal for marketers with Twitter updates is therefore to publish as much solid content as possible in order to catch followers when they’re reading. The real-time nature of Twitter also favors breaking news. The first profile to post about breaking news or something important will often receive many retweets. Therefore marketers should try to turn as much relevant content about their brand into tweets as possible, and move quickly when posting about topics that appeal to a wide audience.

Brand Presence vs. Broadcast Channel

Overall, however, Facebook appears to be most focused on reinforcing its focus on private, real-world connections through ongoing improvements to features like Groups and Chat. It is also focused on providing a platform for full-featured brand presences, where business can host engagement applications, contests, and rich media content as well as distribute updates. Twitter has meanwhile settled into becoming a broadcast channel for brands with some conversational functionality.

Facebook and Twitter share some similarities but these are considerably outweighed by the differences between the two networks and their audiences. Marketers looking for success on both must invest time and expertise into tailoring strategies that fit within the unique constraints of each.

Learn about more key differences — and how to optimize for each platform — in the full Facebook Marketing Bible article.

The following is an excerpt. The complete article, available in our Facebook Marketing Bible, includes the full six steps why you shouldn’t syndicate your Page updates to Twitter and should write custom updates for each network instead.

For the busy marketer, syncing the updates from your brand’s Facebook Page with your Twitter profile can seem like an easy and convenient way to minimize the time it takes to manage both accounts. However, as we explore below, we recommend you write custom version of your content for Facebook and Twitter, as cross-posting can work against your goals instead of for them.

But first, we’ll cover how Facebook’s official Twitter application allows Facebook Page owners to automatically syndicate their posts to Twitter after installing the app on their Facebook Page.

Link Your Facebook Page To Twitter

To start syncing your Facebook updates to Twitter, simply navigate to www.facebook.com/twitter to add the application, and click the Link a Page to Twitter button.

From there, choose the Page you wish to link to Twitter and click Link to Twitter.

As the Page administrator, you can decide whether to share everything you publish on your Facebook Page with your Twitter followers, or be more selective and choose from Status Updates, Links, Photos, Notes and Events. Status updates and links work best as these types of content can be consumed via Twitter without users having to return to Facebook.

If you have multiple Pages, you can also link each of those Pages to different Twitter accounts.

Updates are posted to Twitter with a shortened URL from bit.ly.

6 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Do This

Syncing up your brand’s Twitter profile with your Facebook Page seems like a smart idea, but it’s not something that we would recommend for a number of reasons.

1. Twitter Isn’t Facebook – They’re very different social platforms with different communities, expectations and norms. You won’t get as many clicks or as many people following your calls to action unless you write for your network-specific audience.

The full version of this article, which covers all six reasons why you should write custom updates for each network instead of cross-posting, can be found in the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s complete guide to marketing, advertising, and ecommerce on Facebook.

The following is an excerpt. The complete article, available in our Facebook Marketing Bible, includes the full eight steps to make sure you take for doing a promotion, as well as notes on having back-up plans, as well as what to watch out for in Facebook’s Promotions Guidelines.

While listening to and engaging with your customers is the top priority for all brands with a presence on Facebook, growing the number of Likes on your Page is also of major importance. There is no recommended maximum for a Page’s Likes – the bigger, the better.

In previous articles we have looked at the value of incentivizing the Like on Facebook Pages, and one of the best ways to do this is through the use of a promotion that encourages existing fans to share and recommend the Page to their friends in exchange for a reward once a predetermined number of Likes has been reached.

By evangelizing fans in this way you can benefit from the positive effects of word-of-mouth and personal recommendation, driving the size of your Facebook community to the next level.

In this article we will look at how marketers and brands can utilize existing fans to drive new Likes to Facebook Pages via the use of Like targeting.

Who Should Do This?

Because they depend heavily on fan involvement, Like targeting promotions work best on Facebook Pages that are already well-established with an engaged and receptive audience.

New Pages or those with a low number of existing Likes should build the community size using CPC and other methods before attempting promotions of this kind.

Driving fans towards a Like total in exchange for a reward, particularly if that is a discount, works best on Facebook Pages where the brand has something to sell, preferably via an online store that is tied to the Page.

Because these kinds of promotions depend so heavily on fan involvement and building a sense of urgency, they should not be overused — no more than one to two times per year for smaller Pages, and possibly every other year for larger Facebook communities.

The Promotion

1. Decide On The Number Of Likes To Be Targeted And How Long The Promotion Will Last

These are both key factors – a small number of Likes can obviously be realized in a shorter period of time, but might be unsatisfying for all concerned, while promotions that go on too long (or indefinitely) won’t hold the interest of your community.

Both the marketer and fans want this to succeed – the latter want the prize, and the former wants the boost in community size (and to avoid egg on face at all costs). Hence, it is important that both the target and timeframe are realistic.

The optimal combination is a healthy Likes target over a fairly strict timeframe that carries a sense of urgency but seems achievable with effort, energizing the community into taking action. For example, a page with 3,000 existing Likes might utilize a promotion that targets reaching 5,000 Likes in 10 to 14 days. That same page could also target 10,000 Likes in a month, but 25,000 Likes over two to three months would be unadvisable. Move through milestones naturally and organically.

The full article, which covers eight steps to make sure you think through when doing a promotion, can be found in the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s complete guide to marketing, advertising, and ecommerce on Facebook. Other steps cover how to prime the existing user base for the promotion, as well details on running ads to support the promotion, and much more.

Managed correctly, your Facebook Page can quickly become your company’s second home on the web, both in how well it ranks on Google and the frequency with which it is visited by your customers and audience.

Because your customers are already on Facebook (spending on average  25-30 minutes each day on the site), they have a significantly higher chance of seeing your brand’s messages within their News Feed than they do of frequently re-visiting your website or any other medium on their own initiative.

As fans engage with your Page by commenting on, Liking or sharing content, awareness of your brand is extended to that person’s friends, helping you reach additional customers. Once users granted you permission to communicate to them by Liking your Page, you can continue to market to them ad infinitum, essentially for free.

In the following article, available in our Facebook Marketing Bible service, we go over how to reach users using the main two types of channels available for getting and re-engaging users through getting them to Like your Page:

1. Paid – Likes are collected via an advertising campaign for the Page using Facebook Cost Per Click (CPC)
2. Non-paid – Likes that occur through proactive means or naturally, which will refer to hereon in as organic

We also detail the following ten tips for getting non-Paid Likes:

1. Get The Basics Right
2. Secure Your Page’s Username
3. Build A Customized Landing Page
4. Incentivize the Like with Contests
5. Install A Like Box On Your Website
6. Leverage Your Database And Contacts
7. Suggest Your Page To Existing Facebook Friends
8. Promote Your Facebook Page Everywhere
9. Don’t Ignore Your Biggest Fans
10. Update, Listen And Engage

For example:

2. Secure Your Page’s Username

When your Facebook Page reaches 25 Likes, Facebook allows you to customize your Page’s username.

This is important for a number of reasons.

• It reduces the size of the URL. The default URL for your Page on Facebook will be something like http://www.facebook.com/pages/Page-Name-Here/ followed by a 15-digit number. A customized URL can be any number of characters after the Facebook URL – for example, http://facebook.com/InsideFacebook is a customized URL. It’s far more elegant and quite a lot shorter, which is ideal for sharing your Page in emails, on websites, business cards, flyers, TV and radio ads, and so on.
• It looks professional and provides a measure of authenticity to the first-time visitor.
• A customized URL that matches your brand name will help with search engine optimization (SEO), and increase the likelihood that your Facebook Page will be a top search engine result for a search of your brand name.

Your Page username needs some thought – ideally it will be your business name if available, or a close variation thereof if not. When you customize your username the change to the URL is made immediately and seamlessly throughout Facebook, with no loss of existing fans, comments and Likes.

This is another reason why the use of CPC to generate immediate Likes is important for the new Facebook Page as it will allow you to quickly secure your customized username.

Warning: Please note that once set, your Page’s username cannot be changed or transferred. Be very mindful to avoid a typographical error.

The full article can be found in the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s complete guide to marketing your brand using Facebook.

Luxury apparel brand Lacoste has built up a Page on Facebook that has almost six million fans, and it has done so with the help of a landing page that encourages first-time visitors to immediately interact with it, either by Liking the Page or by using a branded application.

While Facebook by default sends users straight to a Page’s Wall, Lacoste provides a good example of why you should consider a more sophisticated approach to engaging users — especially because Facebook itself has recently changed the options for what you can and can’t do with Pages.

In the following article, we’ll explain the necessary steps for creating a quality custom landing page for your Page.

In March 2011 Facebook removed the Static FBML app for Facebook, which was the popular choice for building customized landing pages and other tabs in Pages. While existing tabs using the Static FBML app continue to function for now, new tabs cannot be built in this way. Instead, customized tabs on Facebook Pages need to be created as a new app via the Facebook Developers site, with your chosen content then embedded using an iframe.

Although Page owners who use Static FBML will need to adapt, the change is overall a win for the ecosystem. Whereas Static FBML pages were fully hosted on Facebook and had some limitations, you can embed any kind of web page into an iframe, giving the developer unlimited possibilities. It’s now very easy to add crowd-pleasing functionality such as images, video and tweets, as well as back-end technology such as Google Analytics for tracking usage. And, because these pages are hosted on your website, you have complete control over how everything looks and works.

You can read the full article, including a step-by-step guide to setting up customized landing Pages using iframes, in our Facebook Marketing Bible.