19 do’s and don’ts of Facebook marketing

Target audience: Marketing professionals, SEO specialists, nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, businesses, educators, Web publishers, organizations with a Facebook page.

Guest post by Scott Ayres
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Want some solid advice on how to use a Facebook page for your nonprofit or organization? Then you’ve come to the right place. Here are 19 do’s and don’ts for Facebook pages.

Here’s what to do with your Facebook page

• Keep posts short and sweet – Posts with fewer than 100 characters (not words!) get more engagement. Why do you think Twitter is only 140 characters?
• Answer questions and respond to posts– Your page is not a walled garden! Respond to your followers and be personal.
• Ask questions and ask for feedback – The best posts on Facebook pages tend to be questions. Ask them often and listen to what your users are saying.
• Participate in the conversation – Customers appreciate business owners who take interest.
• Provide helpful links — Be sure to help educate your fans, not just promote your products.
• Follow thought leaders — Find people in your niche and follow them — and make sure to interact with them and their followers.
• Run promotions – Offer specials, coupons and limited-time offers.
• Keep supporters and customers informed – If your shop’s going to be closed, let your constituents know ahead of time. If you’re an online company, keep people informed of outages that may be coming or have occurred.
• Post photos – If you’re a local nonprofit or company, post pictures of your organization and employees. People love to recognize someone around town or in your store or office that they saw online.
• Say thank you – Thank your followers and fans often. Make them the center of your focus.

Here’s what not to do with your Facebook page

Don’t do the following:

• Overpost – Only post as often as you can get good engagement.
• Excessively self-promote – I go by the 90/10 rule: 90% of your posts should be fun and informative, 10% can be promotional.
• Use bad grammar – Make sure you don’t have any grammatical errors or misspelled words in your posts. The grammar police will be on to you!
• Be shy – This is your opportunity to speak directly to your customers. Be outgoing and engaging.
• Overshare – Don’t post rants or gripe about employees or customers. Some things need not be shared on Facebook.
• Talk politics or religion – Have your opinions, yes. But you’ll run off over half your potential supporters or customers if you take a stand on political or religious issues. So choose your words wisely.
• Respond hastily – Remember that your messages are public. Well thought-out and correct answers are vital.
• Bad mouth competitors – You may think the competing burger joint down the street sucks — and they might. But don’t air your opinions on social media about it. It just makes you look juvenile.
• Share secrets — You don’t have to tell everyone all of your secrets. Some things need to stay in house and not be aired on social media. Plus, if you share every problem you have, your supporters or customers will lose faith in you.

Follow these tips as you see fit. Your reputation depends on you using social media the right way! What do you think?