Flickr Image: pshab

Earlier this week, my colleague Lauren Shapiro discussed Facebook: Expanding Your Reach Beyond Six Degrees. In this blog post, I’d like to elaborate upon the Facebook theme. Often with social media, we feel like we have to learn by trial and error. But it’s great when we can get some tips, and avoid the mistakes by learning from the challenges of others. I attended a National Capital Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America’s (PRSA-NCC) professional development seminar this week, at which a panel presented some best practices and lessons learned in regards to their organization’s Facebook strategy.

Some Facebook Tips:

• A fan page is meant for businesses or organizations, and public figures; groups are for similar interests; causes are for cause campaigns; and profiles are for real people (not organizations).
• Your organization’s fan page name and description are both searchable, so include acronyms and nicknames in one or both. The name of your Facebook fan page cannot be changed without starting a new page and loosing all fans.
• Ask your employees to be fans. They are often your best advocates.
• Promote your events by creating a Facebook event and inviting all your friends and fans.
• Connect your blog(s) to your Facebook page and monitor how postings affect your page views.
• Be consistent with your organization’s messages on Facebook.
• Monitor conversations and look for trending topics.
• Facebook ads can be an effective way to gain additional fans and enforce your message.
• Facebook fans and friends are real people, so converse with them.
• Find someone to tell the story in the first person.
• Let pictures tell the story. Short, real, messy video works better than a professionally produced one. If these can come from your fans, all the better.
• Consider posting rules of engagement to let fans know what they can and cannot post. And how they can expect you to handle the situation should a post violate one of these rules.
• If you are having fun, your friends and fans will too!

For more on this program, including a list of the panelists, you can check-out my post on the Capitol Communicator.  Additional posts include:  a video blog entry by Amanda Miller Littlejon of Mopwater and Deborah Brody gives a recap on the Capital Buzz.

And for more tips on how to effectively use Facebook, check out the BurrellesLuce newsletter, Boosting Your Value From Facebook: Ten Tips For PR and Marketing Professionals.

How are using Facebook to reach your audiences? How are you incorporating Facebook into your overall media plan? Do you have any additional tips to share?