Facebook Fan Pages-Why?
All the experts proclaim that if you are in business, in a band, if you are an author, speaker, or lead an organization, that you need a Facebook Fan Page.
Well, I have one, http://www.facebook.com/TheDreamingCafe, but if I knew what I know now I would have never started one, at least not this early in the evolution of The Dreaming Café.
- There are only two reasons why you SHOULD have a Facebook Fan Page:
-
1. You are near, or at the max, of the 5000 friend limit on your personal profile page.
2. Your business, band, book, or organization ‘fans’ and ‘friends’ are two completely different groups and there is no crossover.
Now, personally, I know very few people who fall into either of these two categories. And, according to TechCrunch.com nearly 77% of all Facebook fan pages have less then 1000 fans.
- Why did I jump on the band wagon and create a Facebook Fan Page for The Dreaming Café?
-
1. One of my links was reported as ‘spam’. I was not only hurt that a friend would report me as spam, but I was also worried that other people felt the same way and that soon I would be unfriended by everyone. (Over reaction, I know.)
2. I participated in several ‘Social Media’ teleseminars and all the experts said I had to have a Fan Page. My mistake was listening to them without doing my own research like I normally would. Being reported as spam caused me to react versus to think and to research why I was reported as spam and how to avoid it going forward. (Lesson learned, I hope.)
- There are two big benefits of a Facebook Fan Page has over your personal profile page:
-
1. Fan pages are public. People do not have to join Facebook to view your posts, events, notes, etc.
2. They are searchable. This means that the major search engines like Google and Yahoo will ‘crawl’ them and index them like regular web pages so they can be included in search results.
- One BIG disadvantage of Facebook Fan Pages: No posting updates.
-
This is it’s biggest downfall and is very disappointing to me.
You receive a notification or update when someone ‘likes’, comments on your posts or writes on your Wall on your Facebook personal profile. This does NOT happen, at least yet, when someone ‘likes’, comments on your posts or writes on your Fan Page wall.
This means that unless you are babysitting your Facebook Fan Page all day, every day, your fans can be posting, making comments and asking questions and you won’t even know it and neither will any of your other Fans.
You want to interact with your Fans and you want them to interact with each other. Without the notification process basically the whole thing turns into a one way conversation. And, you do not want one way conversations with your friends, fans and supporters.
The point of social media is that it’s social, it’s about conversations and community. Right now Facebook Fan Pages do not provide this opportunity.
These are my opinions, based on my experience.
I do believe that Facebook Fan Pages play a role in your ‘get-noticed’ strategy, I just don’t believe that they are right for everybody, all the time.
What do you think?
