How To Build A Priceless Facebook Fan Page

My good friend, Keri Jahnig, recently sent me these thoughts in regards to Facebook fan pages and how to generate more interaction, likes & activity. I thought the ideas presented within were priceless. This all started when Keri invited me to be her Facebook fan page’s “guest” for a week, allowing me creative liberty to interact with her fans, share thoughts & ask questions. That right there is a priceless idea in itself. If you don’t know Keri already, be sure to visit her online at Idea Girl Media, where you can learn more about her services & recent blog posts.

Thanks for being so fabulous this week. Surely more excitement & more votes to come! My page does seem to have more action on Fridays – the “Happiness Quotient” is 10% greater that day.

I wanted to offer you a bit of insight I learned at the Social Media Success in May.

Facebook is tricky – they are selfish even.

I’ve noticed that you are using Ping.fm & Hootsuite to post to your FB Page. Which is convenient, but does not give you any advantages. Facebook does not give those automated posts as much weight, so you are getting it to your page, but your fans may not necessarily see it. Also, automated posts do not do much for your EdgeRank score.

Additionally, I noticed your Networked Blogs is set to automatically feed to your FB Page. It makes sense that one should do this – I used to too. But Facebook does not give much priority at all to this.

Here’s what I suggest.

Your page has more than 1000 fans (the magic FB number), so you should notice an increase in fan engagement with a few simple adjustments…

Post all FB status updates that you can organically — straight to the page. The organic posts are given more weighted priority, and will typically bring more fan engagement. Which will increase your EdgeRank score, which will, in turn, propel your page further.
You get good SEO from using Networked Blogs with your FB Page. Keep it connected. But turn off the syndication option to your FB Page. Post those links organically. This combination gives you better FB love!
Fridays – There really is a “Happiness Quotient,” and it is highest on Fridays. This is the day to ask off topic questions and “play” with your fans. {Fun Factoid}
Posts with 80 characters or less get more fan interaction. When posting links to FB, always post the original version – the long ones – shortened links get low interaction rates. {Those are just facts – do with them what you will}

Not every status update can be done organically. But as much as possible posting organically will make a difference. Mari Smith speaks to this, and someone did a blog post about it today that was passed around Twitter. The company that wrote about it noted a 200% increase in fan engagement in a week, and 650% for a business quarter.

I hope that is helpful, and will bring you optimal results.

Please feel free to ask any questions about anything above.

Thanks again for your collaboration this week — Lets see if we can maximize those votes!