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SIMPLE FACEBOOK INSIGHTS
Measuring Your Influence
ELECTRONIC EDITION
RUSSELL MICKLER
SIMPLE BOOKS
First Printing: April 2011. Version 1.0.
© 2011. Russell P. Mickler. All Rights Reserved.
Written in the United States of America Between February 2010 and March 2011
Prepared using Oracle OpenOffice ® 3.2 on Ubuntu 10.10
Times Font 10 pt
Some of the material in this book, though revised and expanded, originated on the author’s blog.
Praise for Simple Social Media
“I needed a book that spoke to a social media challenged business owner. I found it. The book is
very straight forward and talks a language that I can understand. I am using the principles
presented in this book, and my Facebook page is growing and I actually know what I am doing.”
– Terry, Amazon.com Review
“I liked Simple Social Media because it explained HOW I should be posting and/or blogging. It
tells me when it is the most effective time to do it and on which days ... Russell Mickler uses a
plain-English method of instruction that a business person can understand.”
– Isaac, Amazon.com Review
“Russell has avoided the all too typical geek speak, and explains things in a clear and well
researched book. He answers the questions we all have: "What's in it for me? Why should I use
it? What is the return on my investment?" ... Simple Social Media is a must read if you want to
understand what social media can do for you and how to get started properly.”
– Rusty, Amazon.com Review
“If you're a web designer with your own business or work for a large company, this is a great
book to read. It will help you fully understand social media and how to be successful at it. It will
also help you come across more knowledgeable and should boost your confidence and increase
your bottom line as a web entrepreneur.”
– Riley, Amazon.com Review
“Mr. Russell Mickler is like the person in a corn maze that not only points the way, but escorts
me personally through the maze. I am still in the very early stages; however I appreciate having
this book as a guide.”
- Dr. Marc, Amazon.com Review
DISCLAIMER
No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution
has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or
omissions. Nor is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of information contained herein. Every
effort has been made to make this book as complete and as accurate as possible, but no warranty or fitness is
implied. The information is provided on an “as is” basis.
PUBLISHER
SIMPLE BOOKS
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Vancouver, Washington 98682
www.simple-books.net
Voice: 360.216.1784
Fax: 360.397.0468
ERRORS AND OMISSIONS
To report errors and omissions, please send a note to [email protected].
FEEDBACK
If you’re sampling this book on an e-reader platform, we’d love to hear your opinion about the sample. What
worked well? What didn’t? What could be improved to entice you to buy? Please take our survey.
COVER DESIGN
Chris Martin of Chris Martin Studios
www.chrismartinstudios.com
ILLUSTRATIONS
Russell Mickler
TRADEMARKS
All terms mentioned in this book that are known to be trademarks or service marks have been appropriately
capitalized. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service
mark.
BULK SALES
Simple Books offers discounts on this book when ordered in quantity for bulk purchases or special sales. For more
information, please contact the publisher at [email protected].
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Would you like to receive updates and information from Simple Books? Want to know when our special author
events, signings, promotions, and seminars will be taking place? Then join our mailing list at http://www.simple-
books.net/subscribe.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Russell Mickler, Principal Consultant of Mickler & Associates, Inc., has over 16 years of professional experience
leading and managing IT organizations. As a technology consultant, Mickler assists small to mid-range businesses
with crafting and executing technology strategy. In addition to earning his Master’s Degree in technology from the
University of Oregon, Mickler is a Computer Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and a Microsoft
Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE). Mickler teaches graduate and undergraduate technology courses for many
universities across the country. Mickler is the co-author of several books concerning Information Technology and
Information Security. Mickler is also a public speaker on matters concerning social media and technology, and
creates all types of media at micklerandassociates.com and his blog reinventwork.com. Russell Mickler and Mickler
& Associates, Inc. can be found on Facebook, on Twitter at @micklerr, and emailed directly at russell@simple-
books.net.
OTHER BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS BY THE AUTHOR
Simple Social Media
READER FEEDBACK
It's my hope that you find this book useful and practical, and as my reader, you're the most important critic in the
world. If you have comments or suggestions regarding this book, please feel free to send your ideas my way via
email, Facebook, or online surveys. I'd love to receive your feedback.
READER SERVICES AND MATERIALS
Many materials, presentations, videos, and downloadable forms mentioned within this book can be found on the
author's website, www.simple-books.net/simple-facebook-insights.
- To Regina, with whom all things are possible.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Why is a Social Networking Strategy Important?
What Should My Business Say on Facebook?
Changing Consumer Preferences Concerning Email
What’s a Facebook Friend Worth?
Facebook Pages vs. Profiles
Facebook Insights
What Are Active Users and Interactions in Facebook?
Facebook Insights User Dashboard
Facebook Insights Interactions Dashboard
Facebook Edgerank
Interpreting Facebook Insights
Conclusion
FACEBOOK PAGES VS. PROFILES
What You Will Learn
• Understand the differences and technical distinctions between Facebook User Profiles and Pages
• Identity the kinds of behaviors that Facebook considers suspicious and could result in a User being banned
from Facebook
• How interactions with the walls of Pages result in News Feed activity that are seen by Facebook Users
• Explain the differences between Pages and Groups on Facebook, and the different ways both can be used
by businesses to reach an audience
Understanding Facebook’s Rules for Engagement
Facebook is built around people.
When a person signs-up for Facebook, they are become an Active Facebook User and are given a Profile. A
Profile is a space Facebook Users can call their own. Users customize Facebook Profiles to describe themselves,
upload content of all kinds, articulate their likes and dislikes, and voluntarily reveal bunches of invaluable
information about their consumer preferences and passions. They can even extend some of the features of their
Profile by installing Applications to sort of “trick-out” their Profile so it can do different things.
Figure: Author’s Facebook Profile
Over time, Facebook users “friend” each other and create expansive networks of people they know that I’ll refer
to as tribes. “Friending” is Facebook’s action for interconnecting one Facebook Profile to another. Tribes are
regional clusters of Friends whose Profiles are interconnected on Facebook. They share a basic relationship from
association, family, genuine onground friendships, casual interests, business relationships, or plain old romantic
entanglement. Regardless, that relationship may never directly translate to people actually knowing each other.
Tribes are like a big cocktail party. There are a lot of people who may indirectly know each other from real-life
and others who may be absolute strangers yet share some connection in the tribe. Some people in the tribe are very
charismatic - they’re the hub of activity – whereas, just as in real-life, others are introverted wall-flowers. Still,
others may be highly influential and people will listen to them when they speak, and yet others aren’t taken very
seriously at all. Some people are outrageously funny; others are dreadfully dull. Some are interesting and smart!
Some, well, not so much. And even though Facebook may not be an accurate depiction of real people and their real
personalities, people - their interests, interactions, perceptions, opinions, ideas, and character - are at the core of
Facebook.
Facebook Pages, on the hand, are artificial Profiles that represent abstract ideas. They might champion causes,
promote businesses, highlight interests, or illustrate broad whimsical concepts. Facebook Users create Pages, and a
Facebook User can practically create as many Pages as they want. In an upgrade in 2011, Facebook greatly
simplified their Page types to just six categories from eighteen:
• Local Business or Place
• Company, Organization, or Institution
• Brand or Product
• Artist, Band, or Public Figure
• Entertainment
• Cause or Community
So you’ll notice that business – set up under Facebook per their Terms and Conditions – are Pages and not
Profiles. People visit Pages, view content on Pages, and subscribe to Pages by “becoming a fan” or “liking” pages as
a means of socially identifying with the values, principles, products, or services represented by the Page. Facebook
users might even share content from Pages within their network and drive traffic to Pages.
Tip: So Why Are So Many Businesses Profiles?
Narrative
Figure: Author’s Facebook Page
Pages are socially-crippled within Facebook. Where Facebook users “friend” each other’s Profiles, users of
Facebook “like” a Page, and Pages cannot “friend” Facebook users. “Liking” a Page is an entirely voluntary act on
behalf of the Facebook user. That limitation prevents pages from creating extensive spamming networks within
Facebook. Users must opt-in and offer their Consent through a LIKE.
A Facebook User’s motivation to “like” a Page represents a form of Consent – they might be interested in
receiving more information, updates, and content from the Page over time; content published to the Page by its
owner will flow to the User’s Top Stories news stream. Subscribed Users will continuously receive content from the
Page. However, another part of a User’s motivation is to send a signal. Facebook Users are advertising to their own
Friends that the Page (and its values, message, services, or meaning) have some importance in their lives; “liking” a
Page is a form of promoting it to others in their network and their social network – in turn – may flock to LIKE the
Page, too, since it stands to reason that they share similar values and beliefs. If a Facebook User “likes” a Page, it’s
an open invitation to join their tribe’s cocktail party.
Pages weren’t really part of Facebook’s overall design when it started and – painfully – Pages have evolved
through trial and error. In fact, managing a Page as a Facebook User is a somewhat wacky, abstract idea: in
Facebook’s most recent incarnation, you literally assume the identity of a Page by switching to it, and the Facebook
User literally becomes that Page. In that moment, the User steps outside of their own Facebook “body” to become
something else – their social network changes, their “Friends” are no longer “Friends”, and the things they “liked”
are no longer available to them. Yikes! Who am I?
Figure: Author Switching Between a Facebook User and a Facebook Page
Honestly, this is a very confusing concept to many of my small business clients because they can’t tell “who
they are” at times, and besides that, Pages are just a strange thing in a universe centered on people. In a way, Pages
are like a talking sandwich board with a face on the top of it left in the middle of a tribe’s cocktail party.
“Hullo,” says the talking sandwich board when greeting members of the tribe as they walk by, or, if they’re
voluntarily introduced to the sandwich board by members of the tribe because the sandwich board, you see, can’t
walk up and talk to a person… that’s against the rules. The person must walk up to them. “A pleasure; allow me to
introduce myself. I represent the photocopier merchant down the street and thought you’d like to know how we help
our customers. Please LIKE me.”
Um, awkward.
Part of your challenge in co-existing as a brand in an electronic universe built around people will be to
overcome this awkwardness. Your Page is obviously not a person in Facebook. You’ll need to blend your brand’s
message, identity, and ideas with the ongoing narrative of the tribe, and, develop a way to listen to what the tribe’s
asking of your Page. In a way, you must personify your brand.
Tip: Using a Face on a Facebook Page
Narrative
Technical and Policy Distinctions - Profiles and Pages
Facebook makes several functional and policy distinctions between Pages (owned by companies, community
interests, celebrities, artists, forms of entertainment, and brands) and Profiles (people).
Anybody can create a Profile. Even fake people can create a Profile so long as they’re tied to a unique email
address although Facebook really frowns on that practice. It’s free and all Facebook requires is that you’re over the
age of 13. Thirteen isn’t arbitrary: it corresponds to an age established by a federal law pertaining to the legal
collection of Personal Private Information from minors, so Facebook is very strict when it comes to their minimum
age requirement. Now, if Facebook had their druthers, all Profiles must be real-life individuals and held under a real-
life individual’s name, and they’d be over the age of 13; Facebook would prefer that just one person use only one
profile. However, that’s terribly difficult (if not nigh-impossible) for them to enforce.
Tip: What Kind of Information Does Facebook Capture About People?
Narrative
Facebook does have the ability to patrol and control its subscribers after their sign-in and then take corrective
action on suspicious activity by banning (blacklisting) User accounts. Mostly their action happens after-the-fact
where indicators and metrics highlight suspicious activity in their system. Banning a User turns off their ability to
log in to Facebook and prevents access to their Profile and any Pages they created. In monitoring for suspicious
activity, Facebook will go so far as to ban Users for:
• Being under 13 years of age
• Acting as a business under a Profile
• Acting suspiciously under a set of multiple Profiles
• Multiple people acting suspiciously under a single Facebook User account
• Posting content that clearly violates their Acceptable Use Policies (depicting nudity, drug use, graphic
violence)
• “Friending” too often and too quickly – that creates patterns that look like spamming activity
• Importing too many contacts for “Friending” will also look suspicious to Facebook (as if you’re importing
a huge direct marketing list) and they may temporarily ban the User
• Creating multiple Profiles that coercively bends Facebook’s Acceptable Use Policies – they’ll actually
terminate all of your User accounts if you’re thought to be spamming or harming other Facebook users
• Creating blatantly fraudulent Profiles
• Using a Profile as a nickname rather than your real name
• Creating Profiles representing animals, pets, or inanimate objects
• Posting copyrighted material across your Page or Profile
• Posting too many backwards-facing links to external websites
• Creating too many posts in a week, or, copying and pasting the same content over and over
• Messaging Group members excessively
• Being overly obtrusive in your beliefs or ideas (or products) and pushing them (spamming them) on your
Facebook Friends
• Excessive Poking
• Cyberstalking and cyberbullying
• Creating applications that harm other Facebook users and violate their Acceptable Use Policies
• Should a Page questionably promote its products on Facebook – example: encouraging users to press LIKE
to win a prize, or, through a count of the number of fans (“the 200th
fan will win a t-shirt!”), or, by Tagging
photos to win a prize, or, by asking Facebook Users to Tag or Mention their Page in status updates
Obviously, there are a lot of reasons that Facebook might take action in banning Users but this isn’t a
democracy: this is Facebook. They’re the ones who run the system, make the rules, and enforce acceptable use.
There’s subjective opinion on acceptable behavior on behalf of their censors who look at “frequency” and “too
much” and “excessive” that are truly impossible to predict, and horror stories abound on the ‘Net of just normal
people being banned for outwardly silly things. Perhaps the best rule of thumb would be to use common sense when
using Facebook for promotional activities. If your goal is to promote your business or cause with Facebook, bear in
mind:
• You are a marketer who is a guest on their computing platform – act like a guest
• You are a User but also a cause, brand, or business – clearly delineate content between your role as an
individual or as a person representing a cause, brand, or business
• Follow the rules – when in doubt, err on the side of politeness, courtesy, and selflessness
• Avoid magic pills – people who offer means of obtaining 10,000 LIKES overnight are likely cheating the
system, and repeating their methods won’t bode well after your account is banned
• Openly gaming the system repeatedly is cause for Facebook to take corrective action and ban your account
Aside from generally maintaining and changing your Facebook Page, when you login to Facebook as your Page
– again, it’s admittedly somewhat counter-intuitive – you can:
• Post content as your Page
• Interact with content posted to your Page as your Page
• Post content on the walls of other Pages that your Page has LIKED
• Interact as your Page with other content posted by Pages your Page has LIKED
• See Interaction Notifications for your Page as your Page – those notifications found at the top of Facebook
where you acquired X-number of new fans, or, so-n-so LIKED your recent post, etc.
• You can ban other Pages from posting to your Page
In these situations, it’s like your Page or your brand is responding, talking, engaging, and interacting with
people on Facebook. Alas, it’s the talking-billboard syndrome. You can overcome that problem by leaving a
signature with your first name at the bottom of each post; example: -Russell. It’s a simple touch that makes your
interaction more personal. Also, if you always want to post as your Profile rather than your Page, you can change
Your Settings under the Page’s Settings by unchecking the Posting Preferences checkbox. This will tell Facebook to
use your Profile for posts instead of your Page.
[picture]
Now, Pages on Facebook are optimized to share content and collect information in a way that Profiles are not.
Pages also have certain programming features that Profiles do not which is significant to anyone who wants to
customize their page with code to make it snazzy. Registered users on Facebook create Facebook Pages and they can
create as many Pages as they’d like, but only an official representative from a real organization, business, celebrity,
or brand can create a Facebook Page to represent them. Ownership of Pages can be contested and misrepresentation
is a fast track to being banned. A Page can have what’s referred to as a “Business Account” that’s separately set up
for billing and administration purposes so that brand oversight can remain consistent with a company rather than an
individual who might leave the company.
Tip: How to Set Up a Facebook Business Account
Narrative
Facebook Usernames
On Facebook, Profiles and Pages can be given shorter, easier names by which to reference them on Facebook.
They’re referred to as a “Vanity URL” but Facebook refers to the process of assigning a username to the Page or
Profile (as if that distinction doesn’t muddy the waters even more). Where possible, businesses would want to assign
a username to their Page for convenience in referring to it and promoting it.
Examples:
Profile: www.facebook.com/russell.mickler
Page: www.facebook.com/simple.books
Assigning a username to a Profile or Page is a simple matter:
1. Your Page or Profile must have at least 25 Friends/Fans.
2. Under your User account (and not as a Page), you would access www.facebook.com/username.
3. You can then select to assign a username to the Pages where you’re an Administrator, or, to your User
Profile.
4. The username is subject to availability – it must be unique and not previously registered.
Walls, Messages, and News Feeds
Walls are an area on the Facebook Profile where new content is added by the Profile’s owner. It’s the main
stage of Facebook where new content is loaded by Users. When a User writes a status update, they’re “writing to
their wall”. New content from Users may come in the form of status updates, photos, videos, audio clips, notes, or
links to other content on the Internet.
“Writing on a wall” other than your own depicts leaving content on somebody else’s Profile – unless directly
prohibited otherwise through a security setting, Friends are generally allowed to write on each other’s Wall. Writing
on somebody else’s wall generates an email from Facebook to the corresponding User to notify them that somebody
just interacted with their Profile. It’s a great way to get somebody’s attention.
Unlike a Message, posting on a Wall is a public exercise. Messages are private. Anybody who is a Friend of the
Profile may see the material that was posted to the wall. Users can send Messages to other Users, but Pages cannot
send private Messages to any User. Now, follow closely, because this gets confusing:
• Pages have walls.
• Users can post to the Page’s wall.
• However, Pages cannot post to the wall of a User’s Profile.
• Pages cannot post to a User’s wall even if the Page was LIKED by the User.
• Pages can post the wall of another Page that the Page has LIKED (yes, Pages can LIKE Pages).
• Pages cannot Message other Pages.
What you should be seeing here is Facebook’s intent to cripple Pages from interacting socially with Users, and
that the ability for a Page to privately Message Facebook Users would be construed as spam. Pages cannot directly
Message a Facebook User nor can Pages post to a User’s wall, keeping with Facebook’s tradition that User
interaction with a Page is entirely voluntary.
That said, we see where Pages can interact with other Pages and even solicit ideas directly between them. Pages
can LIKE other Pages and even share content. Still, all Pages are prohibited from interacting directly with Users.
When a User logs in to Facebook, they are presented with a News Feed that shows them the Top News Stories
at the moment. Further, the User can Switch to assuming the role of a Page and receive a separate News Feed for
the Page. In both cases, what content gets displayed to the User at that moment is determined by a special algorithm
Facebook created called Edgerank which is explained later in this book.
Content posted to the walls of Profiles and Pages show up in the News Feed. Unlike Pages, Profiles can create
new wall posts that have certain security controls around it so that exposing content to others can be selective. Pages
don’t have this ability. When a Page posts something to its wall, all subscribed Fans of the Page will receive the
update in their News Feed. There is only one exception. Unlike Profiles, Pages can “Target Stream” a wall post. If
you’re an administrator for a Page, when you post a status update, instead of making it to everyone you can down-
select and select the option to customize the update. You can then select a location (like a country) and the languages
you’d like to direct the status to. This will post to all of your Page’s fans so that, say, English-speakers in the United
States aren’t bombarded by an Arabic message you’re sending to Fans in Saudi Arabia.
By this time, you might be saying, oh wow, Profiles have it all-over Pages – why don’t I just create my business
as a Profile so I can directly Message people, target my wall posts, and aggressively FRIEND others? Well,
remember Facebook’s Terms of Service. Also, Facebook has some built-in controls to help curtail this behavior. For
starters, Profiles can only have 5,000 Friends. That’s it. As a User, you can’t have more than 5,000 Friends … sorry.
And although that’s not bad for people, that’s really bad for brands, and there’s no way to “transfer” Friends to a
Page after that 5,000 limitation has been reached. Yikes!
Tip: The Facebook Profile to Page Converter
[Editor’s Note: Actually, at the time of this writing, Facebook did release a Profile to Page conversion tool and it
was out for about a week before they shut it down after gleaning very unhappy feedback from people who’d tried
using it. A conversion tool may be in the works but it’s apparently still a little ways off yet.]
So that’s a pretty big incentive to get it right the first time and just start out as a Page. Meanwhile, something
else very relevant to this book is that Facebook Insights – the tool used on Facebook to measure fan interaction -
isn’t available for Profiles: it’s designed only to work with pages. That in-and-of itself should be motivation for the
small business owner to exclusively market their products and services on Facebook pages rather than profiles, but
here are few more pieces of trivia about Facebook pages:
• There’s no limit to the number of Pages a Facebook user can set up
• There are no practical limits to the number of Fans a Page can acquire
• Facebook Insights only becomes available to Pages after earning 30 Fans or LIKES; Insights isn’t available
to the Page until this minimum threshold is reached
• Page names cannot represent a classification of brands or products, like, “Pizza” or “Beer” - they have to be
specific
• Pages aren’t separate login accounts to Facebook; instead, regular Facebook users who have Profiles are
delegated Administrative rights to a Page
• Pages have no practical number of maximum connections
• Meanwhile, a Profile can only FRIEND up to 5,000 people
• Facebook Pages are crawled by search engines; they contribute to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and
are good for businesses
• Facebook Profiles have layers of additional personal privacy protection around them, and that protection
can be toggled to allow or disallow indexing
• If a Page has 100 Fans or under then its name can be changed by editing the “Basic Information” section of
the page; however, if your page has more than 100 fans, then you can’t change the page’s name – you’re
stuck with it
Facebook Groups vs. Pages
A Facebook Group is another means of connecting a bunch of Facebook Users. Groups are a lot like “Clubs” or
“Special Interest Groups” in real life. Users create Groups, may set variable Group permissions, and they can create
as many Groups as they like. Users may join Facebook Groups as members of that Group, and only Facebook Users
can join a Group; Pages cannot join a Group.
Figure: Author’s Facebook Groups
There are more than a few negatives about Groups for the small business marketer on Facebook.
• One, Group content isn’t indexed by search engines like Google, and the content created by a Group falls
within Facebook’s “secret garden” and is invisible to non-members
• Two, Groups can have options that could conceal it from a master directory – Groups can be entirely
obscured from other users on Facebook for privacy purposes
• Three, only Facebook users can join Groups and not Pages, so content that’s posted in Groups can’t be
easily branded
• And four, Facebook Insights ignores Group content and you can’t report on it
However, if we were to set those limitations aside, there are some fairly interesting advantages to Facebook
Groups:
• Where Pages must reflect a specific entity, Groups can represent just about anyone with similar interests or
any topic
• Groups have the ability to send bulk invitations to Friends
• Groups can also send Messages to Facebook Users
• Group members can engage in Chat discussions together
So where might groups fit in to your Facebook strategy? Groups are great for having quick, interactive, and
personal discussions among Facebook Users, and for attracting attention to a topic among Facebook Friends sharing
a similar interest. Groups are really good for promoting ideas virally: as Group memberships can be made en-mass
by extending invitations to Users, it’s possible to get a large number of people to join and start buzzing over a topic
quickly. Pages, meanwhile, have to be individually shared to Users and Groups through Mentions. Groups are a
horizontal approach to reach a lot of people across many different interests and demographics on Facebook.
Tip: Facebook Groups and Privacy
Narrative
Groups have their own “homepage” although I’m hesitant to call it a Profile or a Page because it’s neither.
Figure: A Facebook Group – the Science Pub of Portland
So why not create a Group for your business instead of a Page? There are lots of reasons. Again, doing so
violates Facebook’s acceptable use policies because Facebook clearly intends business entities to be Pages and
nothing else. Also, Facebook crippled Groups so that only Groups with 5,000 members or under could do direct
(private) Messages to Facebook Users to avoid the potential for abuse. Content created on Groups don’t add any
value to search engines or to being found online. Group’s homepage can’t be customized to the extent that a Page
can. Interactions against Group content aren’t measured by Facebook Insights. And posts made within a Group can’t
be branded with your Page.
Pages are best for maintaining long-term relationships with your fans and customers. They create a destination
on Facebook that’s easy to find and refer to. Pages are a permanent, indexed location for content, sweepstakes,
giveaways, audio, and video about your products and services. Interactions on Pages can be tracked by Facebook
Insights. Pages are a vertical approach to maintaining customer relationships, contact, and visibility.
Mentions
Profiles, Pages, and Groups enjoy the ability to be recognized by Facebook in status updates through the use of
Mentions. If you are logged in to Facebook and writing a status update, and if you’re a member of a specific Group
or if you’ve LIKED a Page, or, you are Friends with specific people, you can Mention them in the update. A
Mention is performed by providing the AT-sign (@) in the status update and by typing the first couple of letters of
the Friend, Page, or Group. A list will appear allowing you to select which party you’d like to reference in your
update.
A Mention creates a convenient clickable link in your update back to that Profile, Page, or Group. Further, the
status update posted with a Mention then appears on the wall of the mentioned party, and cross-posts the status
update to all of the Facebook Users who’re members of a Group. Mentions are an effective way to get a status
update in front of many different people.
Getting Your Ideas Out
Facebook Users immediately include others on content that they post to a wall. When the Facebook user writes
to the wall of a Friend – unless the post was specifically made private - their post can be seen by their mutual
Friends in their News Feeds. The mere act of posting on the wall includes others on the dialog. They can also see,
respond, and interact with the post.
Meanwhile, if a Facebook User posts to the wall of a Group - or if they Mention a Group in their status update -
then all users of the Facebook Group receives a copy of the post in their News Feeds.
When a Facebook Page posts a status update to its wall, all of the subscribers to the Page will receive a copy of
the post in their News Feeds. However, when a Facebook User posts to the wall of a Page or Mentions a Page –
depending on the settings the Administrator placed on the Page – the post will appear exclusively on the Page and
won’t be broadcast into subscriber’s News Feeds. It’s still visible on the Page but the Facebook User must
intentionally go to the Page to read the updates posted by others.
Considering all of the inherent and convoluted rules surrounding Users, Pages, and Groups, I like to talk about
four communication strategies you could use to get your ideas in front of other people on Facebook.
1. Under your Facebook User account, you can personally write a status update on the wall of Facebook
Friend’s Profile, or a Page that you’ve LIKED, or on the wall of a Group. Your personal name gets associated
with an idea that is broadcast to all of your all mutual Friends and Group members. Cleverly, you could
Mention your Page in the status update which creates a convenient link back to your Page in the update, and the
new traffic has the potential to generate more LIKES for your Page and thus more visibility for your content.
This is as Facebook intended.
2. Under your Facebook Page, you could provide a status update that reaches a vertical audience that’s
voluntarily waiting to hear from your brand. The update made on the Page is submitted into the News Feed of
subscribed Users. It’s a reasonable and predictable way to get ideas from our Page in front others; however, it
doesn’t get our ideas in front of new people – just Users who’ve subscribed to our Page. It won’t generate any
new LIKES for our Page. In that way, the audience is very predictable and static, and it’s a communication
that’s intended on Facebook.
3. Meanwhile, as the Page’s Administrator, under your own Facebook User account, you would receive a
copy of this update in your own News Feed. You could then Share the post (an interaction in Facebook) to a
Group by using a Mention. The Mention would then cross-post your original message from the Page as a
personal status update horizontally across many Facebook Users connected to that Group. With cross-posting to
a Group, your Page is Mentioned in the post so that other Facebook Users in the Group could immediately link
to it, and, your ideas are reaching a much wider audience who’re not subscribed to your Page. This strategy isn’t
necessarily intended on Facebook but it’s not discouraged either. It may be perfectly valid for you to Share an
item from a Page with a bunch of other Facebook Users with a similar interest, and you can leverage that to
your advantage.
4. Finally, your Facebook Page could directly post an update against another Page’s wall. That status update
would appear with your company’s branding on the wall of another Page, having the potential to be seen by a
wider audience who’ve subscribed to that Page. That could potentially drive more traffic against your Page.
Also, all of the subscribers to your Page would receive the status update in their News Feed. Now, the mere act
of writing to the wall of another Page doesn’t distribute that post to the News Feed of all subscribed Users, but
that post can be seen by Users who visit the Page. The limitation of Pages updating the walls of other Pages is
as Facebook intended.
Key Takeaways
• Rules, rules, rules. There are lots of rules concerning how Facebook manages Profiles, Pages, and Groups,
and the rules are just controls to prevent people from abusing Facebook. Be mindful and respectful of those
controls in your promotion efforts to avoid being banned.
• There are different approaches to promoting your brand on Facebook. In marketing your business in
Facebook, you will using a combination of personal, vertical, horizontal, or direct status updates using
Mentions on Profiles, Pages, and Groups to gain visibility, acquire more traffic, and potentially earn more
LIKES.
• Facebook will make a celebrity out of you - you are your brand. Remember that on Facebook you
personally share a direct relationship to your company and your brand. You’re as much a spokesperson for
your brand and – in fact – it is Facebook’s nature to make a celebrity out of you and harness your fame so
that you might promote your Page to others.
Summary
In the context of business marketing, Pages have it all over Profiles because we can track interactions in
Facebook Insights! Use only one Facebook User account to set up multiple Pages reflecting your marketing
interests. Use your real name on Facebook and avoid doing anything so excessively as to get banned – it may serve
you well to review Facebook’s Terms of Service. I’d recommend you use Groups to stay connected to a large
community of users who’re hosting conversations about your industry, field, or area of expertise. Contribute to the
Group as yourself, respond to people, and engage in the conversation as you and be visible - all the while -
incrementally promote your Page through Mentions in status updates.
References