Social media will hijack your brand (if it hasn’t yet already). The masses will talk about your organization as kindly or ruthlessly as they wish and you can either partake in that conversation or slink off to the dark ages. Whatever you do, don’t underestimate the power of social media. By participating in the conversation, you have the power to engage your customers on their terms and on a deeper level. Plus, you get to learn from your audience in real-time and for free.

The number of social media avenues can overwhelm, so my recommendation is to start with the most popular, most trafficked site out there—Facebook.  Checking Facebook has now become routine habit akin to checking e-mail, with people spending hours at a time on it and checking it multiple times per day. The question is no longer why you should use Facebook, it’s how to best use Facebook.

Facebook empowers your brand by offering it another “home” to thrive and grow, aka your Facebrand page.  Today’s consumer wants to interact with your brand, so by fostering this page and proactively engaging them, you can begin to manage your brand’s greater online presence.  And if you don’t think this is important, ask yourself what’s the first thing people do when they want to find out about something—they Google it.  Your online presence is the megaphone to your brand. If done right, your brand online can better communicate what your brand offline promises.

So here are a few helpful hints to help you create and take full advantage of your brand’s Facebook page:

·          Do a little research to get to know your audiences. This will help you determine what content will be the most valuable to them.

·          As you start communicating, be authentic and use your brand as a filter.  Before posting or tagging anything, weigh its content and make sure it aligns with the brand you’ve created offline. 

·          Let people come to you. Facebook, as a social tool isn’t a place to advertise.  So don’t crowd your page with too much marketing fluff –it’s sure to turn them off.

·          Keep in mind that people “fan” your page because it reflects something about them. If they relate to your brand enough to become a fan, they are in essence announcing their loyalty and championing your brand to the rest of their network. That’s a big deal.

·          Be engaging. Back in the day, people wrote fan mail; today, people write on your wall. Pique their interests with polls, discussions, and notes. Delivering fresh content is key in bringing them back.  Updating your status message is one way to stay on people’s radar, but avoid clogging up their news feed with too many updates—once per day is more than enough.

·          Think outside the box. Betty Crocker’s page offers recipes, a “what kind of cupcake are you?” quiz, coupons for fans, quick baking tips via its status update and an online cooking class with cooking experts.  Your job is to find ways to deliver more of your unique value in a creative and compelling way. 

-Bianca Abate

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