When you receive a new follower on Facebook, you’re being allowed into someone’s social space. You have, in essence, been invited to the party. How you behave will dictate whether you are invited back next time, which in Facebook currency means whether your followers will stay followers, and whether they will interact with you and share your content with others.
Just like no one wants to invite “That Guy” to the party, no one wants to interact with “That Company” on Facebook.
Marketing on social media – and on Facebook in particular – sits more in the realm of public relations, truth be told. You’re there to get to know people, and to let people know the personal side of your business. There are tons of personalities out there to choose from when creating your company’s Facebook persona, but we’d recommend you steer clear of these . . .
The Facebook Self-Promoter
It’s called social media marketing, right? Well, this guy is definitely here to market . . . exactly the way he has always marketed before.
We all know how to recognize this particular That Guy at the party. He can’t seem to talk about anything but himself. He doesn’t want to carry on real conversations, and he’s convinced that nothing anyone else has to say could possibly be interesting, so he keeps talking about the one topic he does find interesting: himself.
If every link on your Facebook page is self-promotional, you’re That Guy. Facebook isn’t about shoving your message down people’s throats. They already like your company or they wouldn’t have followed your page in the first place. Instead, it’s about building relationships and having conversations, so treat it like a conversation. Don’t be that jerk who talks about nothing but himself. Nobody likes that guy.
The Loud Drunk
The ability to interact with your customers through Facebook is as dangerous as it is powerful. We were recently treated to a view of the downside of these interactions thanks to a business that appeared on Gordon Ramsay’s show Kitchen Nightmares.
Of course, telling you to keep your cool and avoid going ALL CAPS on your customers is kind of a no-brainer, but the loud drunk commits another social faux pas: he talks at people rather than to them.
The Facebook equivalent here is posts with no context. Title of article > link to article > done. Let’s wait for the likes to roll in!
. . . Except they don’t, because you didn’t walk up to people and start a conversation. You shoved a newspaper in their face, bellowed the headlines at them, and then walked away.
The Socially Awkward Facebooker
What this version of That Guy lacks in knowledge, he makes up for in enthusiasm, with cringe-inducing results. He pastes a url in the status window, sees Facebook use that information to create an attractive visual link, and it never occurs to him to delete the url. Sometimes he even uses a service to shorten the url that doesn’t have to be there in the first place.
He also likes his own status updates. Every. Single. One.
Listen, I’m all for socially awkward dorks. I’ve even been known to be one on occasion, myself. That still doesn’t make it a valid marketing strategy. Enthusiasm is wonderful so long as it’s tempered with a willingness to slow down, pay attention and learn something. So look around at the companies and entertainers you follow on Facebook. If the page is popular and successful, chances are you won’t be seeing a lot of urls in statuses, nor will that company like its own posts.
Just be a human
It really is as simple as all that. On Facebook, you’re relating to human beings as human beings. Social media isn’t advertising, and it’s not direct mail. In the often-impersonal world of the internet, Facebook is the most human interaction available to marketers. So just . . . be a human.
