9 tips for a successful Facebook presence

There’s more to building a Facebook presence than creating a page and hoping for the best. As CEO and founder of a company that builds customized tabs for businesses, my colleagues and I have discovered what does and doesn’t work on Facebook by observing the more than 150,000 custom tabs created with our platform. Based on what we’ve seen, here are nine tips and techniques to build and maintain a successful Facebook presence. Commit to the long haul Many page administrators gradually fall into a cardinal Facebook sin: inactivity. They start a campaign and invest time and energy, but because they don’t see immediate results, they lose interest and their commitment fizzles. As a result, their page’s wall fills up with unanswered questions and unsolved complaints. Soon, the bad vibes pile up so high, it’d be better to not even have a page. A Facebook presence takes a long time to develop, and it requires commitment and availability on your part. This means interacting with your fans even if you aren’t seeing the benefits right away. It means leaving no question unanswered on your wall. It means finding or creating content your fans will find interesting, engaging, and relevant, and posting it to your wall. Even if your fan base is small, cultivate it. It’s an investment that will pay for itself in the long haul. Make your page non-fan friendly A fan gate is a common tool used to drive up fan count. If you aren’t familiar with fan gates, the premise is simple: serve non-fans content that encourages or incentivizes liking the page. After the non-fan has clicked like, they have access to exclusive content or features. However, since Facebook users can be picky about what they do and don’t “like,” a fan gate can cause a high rate of abandonment if you’re gating too much content on your page. To ensure that even non-fans visit your page and come away with a better understanding of your company’s products or services, only gate things like contests and promotions. For instance, Neutrogena’s welcome tab encourages visitors to like the page, but offers lots of links and other information for anyone who visits the tab.