Points for Style: Manners Still Matter
Facebook business pages are a powerful way to interact with existing clients and provide potential customers with an engaging perspective on your business. The challenge is that there’s no perfect “how-to” manual! Your business is unique and so is your audience and your goals.
While a custom social media strategy is needed, there are a few etiquette guidelines everyone should follow online. That’s why we created this little Facebook guide to help you keep your fans happy and coming back for more.
1. Post Regularly, Not Too Frequently
Regularly posting updates to your page is important to engage your audience and appear more frequently in their news feeds, but you don’t want to alienate them by bombarding them with information. Consistently space out your posts – a couple of posts per day is plenty to be seen. Much more, and you risk annoying your fans by interrupting their feeds too frequently.
Keep in mind that volume across the platform by all users may make your fans harder to reach, so promoted posts should be part of your strategy to reach them with your highest quality posts.
2. Don’t Over-Promote
When users like your page, they may already be in the market for the product or service you provide. Maybe they already know you or are interested in what you have to share. Your challenge is to be of more value to them than your competition.
Rather than filling their news feeds with constant promotional offers and direct-sales content, provide post updates that offer valuable information related to their interests and your business. Observe the 80/20 rule – for every eight informational posts, about two posts can be shared that are promotional updates.
related: Posting Notes: Social Media Scheduling
3. Watch Your Tone
Always be mindful of how you express yourself in written form. Since your audience doesn’t have the benefit of reading your facial expression or body language, be careful with your written tone.
Saying “We’re very sorry,” “Thank you,” and “We’ll do everything we can to fix this,” are far better than a clammy “We apologize for the inconvenience.” Your clients may be online, but they still expect respect and personal service.
4. Keep Your Cool
Unfortunately, not all of the comments on your Facebook page are going to be positive. If a customer’s complaint is about a genuine failure on your part, acknowledge it, apologize, and offer to resolve the issue quickly. When a complaint comes in, you should address the comment calmly and constructively.
A client’s unprofessional behavior is never an excuse to engage in an online shouting match. Not only are you unlikely to convince them to change their position, you could easily alienate other clients and prospects. It’s best to diffuse the situation with an apology or take the discussion to a private message or phone call.
5. Use Humor with Care
Anything you share represents you and your business, so humor should be used very carefully. As with tone, humor can easily get lost in translation without the benefit of body language or facial expressions. You might find a somewhat controversial or risqué article or video funny, but it’s important to remember that not all potential customers will necessarily share your worldview or sense of humor. Humor is powerful, but when in doubt… get a second opinion or just don’t.
If you think of your Facebook page less as a venue for the promotion of your business, and more as a place for friends to gather and spread enthusiasm about your brand, products or services, you’ll be well on your way toward creating a welcoming digital hangout for your fans.
