Facebook Fan Pages: Company A's Story, part 5b

The Story

I received a phone call from one of the Public Affairs Specialists (PAS) at Company A. He let me know they were going to launch a new Facebook page and asked that I post nothing else to the old one. He also asked for a list of questions he could use to spark discussions on the page.

That afternoon I started crafting a list of a dozen or so questions or leads that could help spark conversation on the company Facebook page. The next morning I looked at the list again, did some fine-tuning, added some discussion sparks, and then e-mailed it to the PAS.

When the Facebook fan page went live there was one discussion topic posted--the first one from my list:

Tell us about an experience you've enjoyed (because of/ with/ through Company A). What made it special?

The Discussion

It's great that Company A was thinking ahead. In the social media plan I'd put together for them I had stressed that conversation with their audience was important. It's one of the major reasons to implement a social media campaign. Company A wanted a list of questions to spark conversations and discussions, and they wanted that list before they ever launched the company Facebook page. That's a great example of the company being proactive and planning their strategy.

Probably because so many people use it every day, many business people think they should be able to handle their own social media marketing. But using social media to keep in touch with your friends is a lot different than using it to promote your brand. Reaching out for help from someone with more expertise and experience, as Company A did, is smart.

Unfortunately, after the launch of the Company A official Facebook fan page, things fell apart on this front. Although the page was launched a month ago, that first discussion spark is still the only one posted by the company. And, although there have been a few posts in response to the discussion spark, no one from Company A has chimed in. Without some official feedback, there is no conversation.

Company A gave its audience control of any discussion to be had on its Facebook fan page. While asking for feedback and listening to what customers have to say is important, if you don't use that information, it's worthless. One way to use it is to let it help you lead and shape the conversation you have with your public. If you don't respond, you can't do that.

Social media marketing is unique because it allows such easy interaction between the company and its customers. If you don't take advantage of that, you're wasting social media's power.

Facebook Fan Pages: Company A's Story, part 5a

When I sent my plan to Company A, I had already visited the Facebook fan page for the site, and had even become a fan. There was very little traffic on the page, so one of the steps I outlined was to start posting regularly to the Facebook page. Until they were ready to do that, though, I said I would take it on, posting links to relevant news articles and posting upcoming events that they sent in-house e-mails about.

For the next three weeks, I did just that, posting two or three times per week. As I started posting, so did others. The site, which had hundreds of fans, was starting to wake up.

And then I got an e-mail from the person who had initially contacted me. He had just found out that this was not an official Facebook fan page. The powers-that-be had decided to take down the unofficial page and launch an official one.

I immediately shot an e-mail back.

"Gah! Don't do that!" (Though worded more professionally.)

I shared Coca-Cola's story.

In essence, many fans had created Facebook pages as tribute to their favorite soft drink, but one page rose above all the others in sheer number of fans. Rather than Coca-Cola getting upset about this page, or trying to start their own official page from scratch, they contacted the page's "owners." They worked with the two fans who had created the page, and turned that page into the official Coca-Cola Facebook page.

The fans (on that page they numbered in the thousands) got to stay put. They got to see Coca-Cola as a company that respected its customers and fans, which wouldn't have happened if the company had tried to shut down that fan page. And the two who created the page became minor celebrities in the world of Coke. (Read more about Coca-Cola's Facebook fan page story .)

The following day my contact in Company A wrote me and said he'd shared the story with the decision-makers, and they were going to migrate the existing fans to the new page. The fans wouldn't have to do anything.

What happened, instead, was that a new page was created and the fans from the old page were asked to become fans of the new page.

In theory, this isn't a bad approach, but the reality is that the fans of the old page have no reason to take action. They don't necessarily care that one page is official and one isn't. They just want to feel like they're part of a community and have discussions about things that are important to them. Official, for those purposes, is irrelevant.

Company could have made it relevant. They could have posted links, invitations to events, and plenty of other information that wasn't available on the fan-created page. But they didn't. They've given their fans no reason to leave the original fan page. Over the next few posts we'll look at things they could have done differently, and things they're doing right, with their new Facebook page.