The Social Path

Do activists have the right to assault your Facebook Page?

I was frustrated today to see that a corporate Facebook Page coordinated by a friend of mine was being attacked multiple times a minute by environmental activists. It's something we've all come to expect in the world of corporate marketing and PR, but it's still annoying to see first-hand.

They spouted a bunch of copy-and-paste attacks on the company and made it clear that they were there to scream, not to talk — and most certainly not to listen. (I'm not going to link to the Page for now, because I don't want to give these infantile protesters exactly what they want: attention.)

Asked my advice on the situation — one where any decision is fraught with potential repercussions for the brand — I found myself unapologetically favoring one approach:

Show these jackasses to the door.

I'm a big believer in companies answering their critics in social media, even those who seem irredeemable. But when a coordinated group invades a Facebook Page with the sole purpose of being disruptive and incendiary, I have no qualms with deleting their spammy posts and banning them from the Page.

Some might feel this approach is anathema to the openness and community spirit of social media. To me, it's just common sense.

Look at it this way: Facebook is your business' digital lobby.

Facebook updates "Page" creation tools.

There is a new page creation process on Facebook, that even the youngest, newest Facebook user can understand, and it will streamline Facebook searches considerably. They've done away with Community Pages - arguably one of their bigger business mistakes - and have gone back to a single type of "Page," now with elaborate levels of categories.

In an effort to become more professional and brand friendly, Facebook had made it damn near impossible to create a page for fun or social purposes. But Facebook is getting back to their roots and is making everyone happy with this new format. Not to mention, the pictures are fun!

Select what kind of general page it is - brand, person, entertainment, social cause, and so on - and then under each of these select from the very long list of subcategories provided. For instance, once you've decided if you're a brand or a product, you then can label your page as a baby product, a musical instrument, a pet product, a vitamin, etc. Facebook seemingly has the exact peg for every page to fit into. After making your selections, click "get started" and, voila, you've got yourself page.

I'm really only left with one question.... where does one acquire an old-school Game Boy with Facebook access?!

Kammie Avant is a social media planner for Luckie & Company. You can contact her by e-mail or follow @KammieAvant on Twitter.

Businesses do not make good Facebook friends.

I thought we were past this, but it's been brought to my attention recently that I was wrong. So, in a last-ditch effort to wipe this approach off the social media map, let me say it on the record: Please don't use a Facebook user profile for your business.

First, a quick chat about the semantics: A "user profile" is the account you use to log into Facebook. It's for individuals only, and it's technically against Facebook rules for multiple people to use the same log-in. A "brand page," meanwhile, is an official Facebook presence for a business, nonprofit, celebrity, etc. Multiple people — dozens, even — can run a brand page.

There are a lot of reasons organizations have stuck with user profiles. Usually it's just a simple desire to stick with what you know, or a focus on speaking to customers as "friends" instead of "fans."

But at this stage in the social media game, Facebook's brand page system is simply too powerful and flexible to pass up. Need more reasons to switch? Read on.

With Facebook pages, you can:

• Publish status messages that appear in your fans' news feeds. 
• Create custom tabs with special offers, applications, coupons — just about anything.
• Have multiple administrators with easy access to the page, which makes transition easier in the event that a Facebook-managing employee leaves.
• Maintain the privacy of your admins. Fans can't see the names of a page's administrators. 
• Have an unlimited number of fans (while user profiles are limited to 5,000 friends). 
• Have access to robust (and free) analytics explaining fan growth, engagement, and traffic. 
• Advertise and promote affordably through Facebook.

But these benefits barely scratch the surface when it comes to the strength of brand pages. So how about a quick case study?

A few months back, we were chatting with the great folks at Alabama's Lake Guntersville State Park. It's a tremendously popular destination, and they were already strong on Facebook. But the park was still using a user profile instead of a brand page, and they wanted some advice on switching.

Their biggest fear, understandably, was losing the 1,000+ friends their account had accumulated. So we advised simply placing a link to the new page on the old profile, but keeping it around just in case. Three days later, the park had more fans than friends. Today, thanks solely to organic growth, the park has 6,600 fans.

I'd say a 500% increase in your audience size is a pretty good reason to make the switch.

And I should mention, you're violating the laws of Facebook when you create user profiles for businesses, and the social media police will come for you. Well, maybe not. But you could have your profile deactivated if Facebook finds you to be violating their Terms of Use.

Moral of the story: Facebook has created an impressive way for businesses to set up shop in the world's largest community (500 million residents and counting). The advantages are increasing in leaps and bounds as Facebook improves, and it's high time to get on board.  

If your business is using a user profile, here's a simple three-step plan to switch:

1. Make sure you have a real, legitimate personal Facebook account for yourself. You can use this to administer the Facebook Page, without even having to "friend" your coworkers. Absolutely refuse to create a personal account? Then try a business account, which is like an ultra-light account made solely to run pages and advertising.

2. Log in through your personal account and create a brand page. You can add as many admins as you want, inviting your Facebook friends or typing in e-mail addresses of non-friends. 

3. Post a comment on your old business profile, letting friends know where you've moved. The best thing to do is link directly to your new page by typing the @ symbol, then spelling the name of your brand. This will pull up a drop-down list of options and create a live link within your status update:

Sure, switching to a page can take a little time and effort, and you might even feel like you're starting from scratch. But have a little faith in your brand and take the growing pains; your brand will benefit from this modest investment of social media legwork.

Kammie Avant is a social media planner for Luckie & Company. You can contact her by e-mail or follow @KammieAvant on Twitter.

Your likes, now linked: Facebook tweaks user interests.

It's the season of change, and social media hasn't missed a beat. First Twitter announced a rapid series of updates, and now it's Facebook's turn.

You've probably heard about how Facebook's "Like Button" can now be found across the Web, letting you "Like" specific products and see your Facebook friends' favorites on the same sites. (See it in action over on Levis.com.)

But one issue that hasn't gotten as much attention is the creation of Facebook Community Pages and how they are being integrated — sometimes quite awkwardly — with your Facebook profile.

Linking Up Your Profile

A few weeks ago, I wrote this post about Facebook changing "Become a Fan" to a "Like" button for pages. What was not clear at the time were the full implications of this move.

As part of the expanded use of "Like," Facebook has now linked the "interests" listed in your user profile to two kinds of pages: existing fan pages and new "Community Pages" for topics that aren't tied to a specific brand, business or artist. 

For example, if you listed Weezer as a favorite music in your Facebook profile, the band's name will now link to the official Weezer fan page. But if you're into something more vague, like "Running," the word will link to a community page that looks more like a Wikipedia entry (and probably even includes info from Wikipedia).

The good news? You choose whether to opt in. If you haven't visited your profile page in a while, try going to it and see if Facebook offers you the option of linking your interests to existing pages.

This will link all that content listed in your personal info — music, movies, interests, books, employment and school — to a fan page or community page for everyone who lists that particular interest or activity.

(But be warned: I chose not to create pages for my interests, which have been on my profile for years. So Facebook simply deleted them. Bummer. On a related note, when a colleague made the switch, Facebook somehow added an entirely new interest to his list: Graffiti. We have no idea what happened there.) 

You're also given the option to "hide" any interests you don't want displayed publicly, though I'm not sure why you'd already have such unsavory topics listed on your profile. 

Your new interests, activities and likes will default to public, no matter what your previous settings were, so you will need to edit these accordingly. An additional category of "Friends, Tags, and Connections" has been added to your privacy settings, and is the new home for these settings. For a general step-by-step guide through the privacy process, read our post about how to edit privacy settings.

Time will tell how Facebook users react to Community Pages. They may be adopted as replacements for Facebook Groups, which suffer from the fact that any posted updates are not featured in members' Facebook news feeds. (In other words, you have to keep visiting a group to keep up with it, unlike how you can subscribe to updates from Pages.)

Popular brand pages stand to benefit well from the profile shift, which helps raise awareness of official pages among casual fans. However, I've noticed that smaller brand pages don't register easily in the transition, and users may be linked instead to a Community Page. This will certainly be an obstacle in growing an audience.

On the positive side for brands, especially those not currently using Facebook, Community Pages will make it easier to keep track of what customers are saying.

Still have questions? Facebook might have answers on its Help Q&A.

Kammie Avant is a social media planner for Luckie & Company. You can contact her by e-mail or follow @KammieAvant on Twitter.

What people really think about social media sites.

We all have our own opinions of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, but how can you tell if you're in the majority? Here's one way I decided to try and find out.

Brand Tags, created by digital innovator Noah Brier, asks visitors to look at a company's logo, then type in the first word that comes to mind. Below, you'll find the results for some of the Web's most popular social resources. The larger the word, the more often it was used to describe that site.

      

      

      

So what do you think? Pretty fair summaries? Or does it seem like these sites have some brand image work to do?

David Griner is a social media strategist for Luckie and Company and contributing editor for Adweek’s blog, AdFreak.com. You can reach him by e-mail or on Twitter.