Mike Flacy

Part of my job is to manage a handful of company brand pages, some more successful than others due to the demographic of the readership.  As I work with Facebook brand pages all day, it has become very obvious to me that the majority of brand / fan pages are clueless when it comes to attracting more fans effectively and efficiently.  Here are 5 reasons why those pages aren’t as successful as they could be.

• You Haven’t Registered Your Custom Username Yet. Assigning a username to your Facebook page couldn’t be simpler. You type in www.facebook.com/username and click on “Set a Username” for your pages.  You would be surprised how many pages (small and large) neglect to make their brand page more easily accessible to someone typing in a URL.  And, unsurprisingly, the Google ranking for the page rises.

• You Are Letting New Visitors Land On The Wall. The great thing about creating a brand page is having the ability to direct new  Facebook visitors to another starting point rather than the wall.   By sending them to a simple tab that you design (with a application tool like Static FBML) , you can welcome them with elements of your website / brand rather than a stream of wall posts.  Even smarter, you can lay out a clear path to becoming a fan.  For Example:

• You Haven’t Designed a Custom User Picture. While Facebook is some what limited in design choices, you can work within the constraints of Facebook’s profile picture requirements to blend into the design.  Take a look at  5 Creative Ways to Hack Your Facebook Profile Photo to get started.  I’m a fan of simply placing your logo beneath the blue line and seamlessly blending into the page.

• You Overwhelm Your Wall With a Busy RSS Stream.  This is a terrible way to treat your fans.  Each post that you make shows up in their Facebook stream.  Sending 15 to 20 posts a day into their stream is rude and defeats the purpose of the wall.  Take the courteous route and create a separate tab for your RSS feed.  Send only your best content onto the Wall to spur conversations.

• You Are Missing From The Discussion.  The whole point of having a Facebook page to promote yourself or your company is to create an open dialog about your brand.  This means you need to join the conversation on a meaningful level.  A Facebook Page isn’t designed for a one-way discussion.  It’s not a page to blast out a press release and ignore the responses.  In order to truly build a dedicated, loyal fan base, you need to become active in the discussion.

Tackle these five aspects of your Facebook brand page and you will be well on your way to building a solid readership of Facebook fans.  Check out 8 Essential Apps for Your Brand’s Facebook Page to grab some great tools for building more functionality to your Facebook Brand Page.