If used correctly, your business’ Facebook page can pull the weight of three team members: customer-acquisition assistant, brand-building partner, and customer service representative. And even if your business’ page is managed by one staff member (or by you on your smartphone), with the right know-how, your Facebook page could still do three jobs for your business. Here’s how to turn your Facebook page into the ultimate multitasker:
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While the Facebook applications for iOS and Android are updated with regularity, BlackBerry doesn’t get the same love. The company announced Thursday that the Facebook and Twitter apps for the BlackBerry 10 phone were updated. Now the Facebook app has the technology to let you know if friends are nearby, as well as better photo and event features.
Facebook loves tweaking the status update boxes on users’ News Feeds in order to get them to share more, such as asking what they’re thankful for around Thanksgiving. Now it seems like status update boxes on page administrator screens are getting that treatment, too. Sister site Inside Facebook reported Wednesday that some pages are being prompted to share links back to their homepages.
What makes someone share a story on Facebook? If the original post comes from a celebrity such as George Takei, maybe it was a funny post. If it comes from a close friend, maybe it’s an announcement. If it’s from a high school classmate they haven’t spoken to in years, maybe it’s something thought-provoking. Dean Eckles, a member of the data science team at Facebook, spoke at Tahoe Snowcial in Nevada about how the connection between users influences how they share on the social network.
In recent days, Facebook has been cutting off data access to applications that have been using it in ways that either compete with or replicate what the social network does — first with Voxer, then Wonder, and most recently Vine. Facebook Director of Platform Partnerships and Operations Justin Osofsky clarified his company’s stance with regard to sharing data. In essence, apps that allow users to share data back to Facebook are OK, while those that do not violate the site’s platform policy.
After Nolan Daniels posted a photo of himself holding a Photoshopped winning lottery ticket, offering to give some of the riches to one person who shared the picture, more than 2 million people on Facebook bought into a hoax. While it was primarily a social experiment, Daniels wrote on The Huffington Post that he’s now trying to use this power for good.
Running a successful Facebook page is often more about science and accuracy than about socializing. You probably already know this from your personal page: You can post great content at the wrong time or under an unattractive title, and it will hardly be noticed. The AutoCAD WS application Facebook fan page now exceeds 200,000 fans (for a business-to-business app; not a company). I had the honor of working on that fan page from the “create new page” step to the point when it reached 100,000 fans. During that time, I learned a lot, namely that simple tweaks and tricks can leverage your content significantly.
Users asked for it, and Facebook has responded. The social network announced Thursday that the native applications for iOS and Android devices now include a share button. Both apps also got an upgrade Thursday, with emoticons coming to Apple and better photo tagging coming to Android.
Facebook is continually changing its privacy settings, trying to give users more control over what they want to share and with whom. But still, even with the most stringent settings in place, personal information can find a way out. The Wall Street Journal examined how Facebook changed the lives of two gay college students, when a classmate added them to a public group for other gay choir singers at the school — an action that was shared on the students’ news feeds.
To show viral activity, we could post graphs, charts and just a plain list of numbers. Facebook, through its Stories program, took virality a step further. Facebook Stories took three images from celebrity George Takei and created an intriguing visual representation of sharing through the social network.
