Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Do's and Don'ts for Fan Pages

Wikipedia refers to a fan site as, "A website created and maintained by a fan(s) or devotee(s) interested in a celebrity, thing, or a particular cultural phenomenon. The phenomenon can be a book, television show, movie, comic, band, sports team, game, or the like." Fan pages can also be created and maintained by businesses (profit or non-profit). Fan pages can be found as regular websites, on facebook, twitter, myspace and several other new new media outlets.

 

DO's


1. Focus on the Content

Upload images, videos, texts and other media types around your brand, focusing on the interests of the community you want to build.

2. Encourage Discussions

Try to engage users by asking and answering on various updates. People are more likely to interact to a human tone of voice instead of a cold corporate talking. Tip: Use @ before a user name to mention specific users –like twitter)

3. Setup Contests and games

Be creative! Motivate people to participate and add entertainment value to their online experience.

4. Reward your fans

Why should I hit the “Like” button? Do you offer only information for your company and products? A way to attract more “Like” thumbs is to offer something special for your fans. (Vouchers, special offers, etc)


5. Promote your Fan Page

Add your Fan Page’s link in your website, blog, e-mail signatures newsletters and printed media.

6. Create Custom Tabs

Create custom tabs with compelling images or videos. This could be a presentation of your company, a contest announcement or even an application.

7. Be prepared to respond to negative reviews

These days people are more likely to express their negative reviews and comments straight to the brand. You should always be prepared to respond a negative review and you should not just try to hide it by deleting the post. This requires a specific policy and the right spokesperson to handle kind situations.

 

DON'TS


1. Don’t invite all of your friends

You should not invite all of your friends but only the ones you believe that are interested in the page. It is really annoying to receive notifications and invitations from things you are not interested in or even dislike.

2. Don’t leave the spam posts

Don’t let spam posts and links within Fan Page’s wall. This kind of moderation is not against freedom but it ensures that users will respect the community members.


3. Don’t post from the same source

Don’t keep on posting only your website’s feed, even if you have a news media website.

4. Don’t spam your users

Don’t send promotional notifications every day. It is not effective but annoying.

5. Don’t forget the Privacy issues

Don’t upload images or videos and don’t tag users without a given permission. Privacy is a sensitive part that you must be extra careful.

6. Don’t create fake accounts

Don’t create fake accounts to represent or support brands. Your target in a social media campaign is not to collect tons of fans or friends but to build relationships.

7. Don’t be so serious

For the community managers: Don’t take yourself so serious. People always enjoy a cool attitude.


Check out Conan O'Brien's succesful fan page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/teamcoco?sk=wall



*Tips from Webseoanalytics.com

2 comments:

  1. These are interesting. I'd like to hear some of YOUR voice here, too--and also for you to add an introduction to explain what kind of fan pages you're talking about and what they are, exactly.

    ReplyDelete