Facebook and Christmas

Our Readers' Opinions

December 13, 2013

Fri Dec 13, 2013

by Candice Sealey

I am always happy to answer the many questions businesses and event organisers have about Facebook, so today I tackle Part 1 of the very popular question: “How can I get Facebook to work for me?â

One key benefit of Facebook is the two-way conversation you can have with customers. Therefore, success is as a result of content and engagement. Developing content without engagement is like talking to customers and completely ignoring what they say back to you. While a content strategy is based on what you’re going to say, an engagement strategy is based on how you’re going to say it and how you respond to your fans.{{more}} Your business or your promotional entity should develop a plan for interacting with your audience.

You can be one step closer to better engagement with these tips. Remember they can be customized for your event or business:

Tone

Customers will revisit your fan page if they feel a sense of community. Be fun, friendly and enthusiastic about your gifts or Christmas specials, without being overly promotional or corporate-sounding.

Level of Engagement

Encourage fan participation and avoid posting only about what you want to promote. Take an interest in your audience’s opinion. Ask questions at the end of your status updates or ask fans to upload their own content.

Share fan content: Share content that your fans have posted by re-sharing on Facebook; they’ll feel even more connected to your company; e.g. if a customer posts a photo of themselves with purchases from your business, share it with others!

Voice

Remember, on Facebook all updates will be prefaced by the name of the fan page e.g. “Ignite!â:

Best practice is to choose between first person plural (we love) and the third person (“Ignite !lovesâ). Avoid the first person singular (I love) approach. Fans want to think that they are interacting with the brand, not just a single employee or representative.

Posting Frequency

Your page should have a Posting Plan. How many times per day will you post? What times of day will you post? What about weekends? There is a strong link between the frequency of posts and the number of fans you will have. There’s a fine balance though; you don’t want to overwhelm your fans.

Candice Sealey is founder of & consultant at Ignite! Full service Marketing & PR Consultancy Company offering tailored services to help businesses succeed.

Let Ignite! develop a full content or engagement strategy for you this Christmas. New sparksâ¦better results