Chapter 17

Ten Common Facebook Marketing Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)

IN THIS CHAPTER

check Using a profile or group to market your business

check Making posting errors

check Selling too much or too little

check Ignoring fans

Just because you’ve created a Facebook Page for your business doesn’t mean that you won’t make mistakes. Mistakes aren’t necessarily bad if you can learn from them, but it’s always good to avoid mistakes in the first place! Many common mistakes have to do with not understanding how people use Facebook. You shouldn’t use a Facebook profile to market your business, for example; profiles are for people. Other mistakes involve unwittingly making a bad impression, such as being too pushy.

In this chapter, we discuss ten of the most common mistakes that you should avoid on Facebook.

Think Like a Traditional Marketer

You’d think that social media would have changed the one-size-fits-all marketing approach that’s been so pervasive since the Industrial Revolution, but it hasn’t. Facebook — and most other social media, for that matter — is still viewed as a free email list to target and market to.

To amp things up on Facebook, you have to flip this mindset 180 degrees and instead think about creating a space for your supporters to share what matters to them.

Start asking these questions:

  • What’s their agenda?
  • What are they already talking about on Facebook that’s in sync with your cause?
  • How can you capture that on your Facebook Page?

Use a Profile to Market Your Business

We don’t recommend using a Facebook profile to market your business on Facebook, and here are at least three reasons why:

  • Facebook profiles don’t have any analytics tools. Those tools show you how fans engage with your content. Without these analytics in your information toolbox, you have no way of knowing what strategies are working on Facebook.
  • Sending a friend request is very different from asking someone to like your Page. If you’re sending friend requests as a profile, you’re essentially asking the user whether you can see her photos, friends list, address, phone number, and perhaps relationship status. This request crosses the unspoken social boundaries that most people have between their personal life and the brands they do business with. It’s perfectly acceptable for you to like a pizza shop, for example, but creepy if a pizza shop likes you. Pages allow Facebook users to connect with businesses they like without compromising their privacy.
  • Using a Facebook profile to market your business could end up violating Facebook’s terms of service. After you spend a lot of resources building up a large amount of friends, Facebook might simply delete your profile.

Use a Group to Market Your Business

Another very common mistake that businesses make on Facebook is to use a group to market their businesses. The problem with this approach is that groups are intended solely for Facebook users to connect with one another about common interests and goals — not about a single brand. All group members have an equal say about what’s discussed, as well as what’s appropriate (or not). Groups that have a single person controlling topics generally aren’t successful. Also, Facebook didn’t create groups to be used for the purposes of marketing: That’s what Facebook Pages are for!

Post with Shortened URLs

Many third-party tools designed to manage multiple platforms are available. Many of these tools, such as Hootsuite and TweetDeck, use URL shorteners to make long URLs fit within the character constraints of sites such as Twitter. Although these tools offer the capability to post links on Facebook, they don’t offer the flexibility of posting a long URL when no such character constraints exist, as on Facebook.

Marketing Cloud (www.facebook.com/marketingcloud), a Salesforce company, conducted a study that revealed that full-length URLs get three times as many clicks as shortened URLs. In other words, using shortened URLs on Facebook actually has a negative effect on your ability to create awareness about your business!

Instead of using shortened URLs, post content directly on Facebook or use a third-party tool like Post Planner (www.postplanner.com), which is made specifically for Facebook marketers to schedule and post various types of content to a Facebook Page.

Wing It

Another common mistake that Facebook marketers make is treating their Facebook Pages with the same relaxed approach that they use for their profiles. People who have Facebook profiles rarely (and should never) have a primary business agenda. For the most part, using Facebook profiles is a completely different social activity that’s relaxed and fun. Pages are very different.

Sure, having a relaxed demeanor on your Facebook Page is important, but so is having a well-thought-out strategy that includes understanding your fan base, presenting a unique message, and measuring results. In other words, don’t just wing it.

Post at Bad Times

Facebook Page marketers generally work 9-to-5 jobs like most other people, and as part of their jobs, they update their Facebook Page with useful content that (ideally) has been well planned. What they fail to realize, however, is that most of their Facebook fans also have 9-to-5 jobs and don’t have time or aren’t permitted to use Facebook during the day. Posting during the workday generally isn’t as effective as posting in the early morning or early evening, or at any other time when users are on Facebook. The reason is that the News Feed flies by very quickly, so posting an update during the times when users are present increases the likelihood that you’ll be at the top of their News Feed right when they’re checking it.

Buffer for Business (https://buffer.com/business) and Post Planner (www.postplanner.com) are excellent applications for scheduling posts at optimum times.

Be Pushy

Selling too much probably is the most common mistake made by Facebook marketers. Suppose that a Facebook marketer sets up a Page and starts posting content that’s all about her business or products. The problem is that Facebook users don’t care about her products and services, but they do care about things related to those products or services. Hikers, for example, want to discuss great places to go hiking or to share photos from a recent adventure. A sporting-goods store that promotes the latest hiking gear through a discount keeps its fans interested only as long as the Facebook Page discount lasts.

Sell Too Little

Selling too little is probably less common than selling too much, but it’s still a potential mistake. Suppose that your friends at the sporting-goods store stop selling too much and start focusing on what their fans are interested in. Their fans start engaging, which is great, but sales don’t increase as a result, because the Page isn’t posting any promotions or any calls to action. Facebook users love to converse about the things they care about, but they also love a good deal!

Post Lengthy Updates

Posting lengthy paragraphs as a status update is like giving your Facebook fans homework. (And when was the last time you celebrated getting homework?) On the other hand, short updates such as questions and short polls get a higher reaction simply because the barrier to participation is very low.

It may be very tempting to cram as much information as possible about your new product or service into a status update, but in the long run, this practice has a negative effect on the News Feed Algorithm. Read more about the News Feed Algorithm in Chapter 7.

Ignore Comments

Facebook fans are people like you (and us). If they make the effort to leave a comment or reply within a thread on your Facebook Page, they want to know that you’re listening. Pages that consistently ignore posts by fans aren’t as successful as Pages that participate in comment threads. Fans are less likely to return if they don’t feel heard.

The other reason to reply to posts from fans is that Facebook sends each fan a notification, bringing him back to your Page. So in addition to showing fans that they’re heard, you get them to continue posting on your Page.