
by Gavin Seim (updated 06/17/10):
So you want a wildly popular Facebook page with thousands of screaming fans begging you for more?
Well I may not be able to give you that. But you never know. Seriously though let me be clear. I have no intention of writing about how you can triple your fans overnight and make $4k per month in your spare time while eating Cheetos and drinking beer. This is an in depth article for people (especially photographers) trying to build real business and client relationships on Facebook.
FB Pages can be great tool for any business. They allow us to promote our brand in an interactive way on a venue a large portion of the population frequents. It’s free too which is even better. Now FB may not be a big deal five years from now, but today it’s king of web social and in business, we go where the customers are.
Often I find my FB pages more effective than my blog or twitter. On the one hand pages are simple, but many don’t understand the nuances that can make them effective. I mange various pages, some important to my business, so I try to do my homework. Watch for reference links throughout that will help you find your way thru FB’s maze of information. Starting with internal help forum. where you can ask specific questions of other users. I also plan to come back and update this post as I learn more and as FB changes.
Making a FB page successful takes cultivation. Kind of like an garden. If you take care of it, it flourishes and produces a lot. But if you ignore or abuse it, it gets sick, dries up and dies. OK, now that my dramatic food analogy is over lets get into some tips. If you don’t already have a page, you can start by making one. Also if you want to check out any of my primary pages for ideas, or +Like them , you can find them as follows.
Tip #1. Add Value: Successful Pages are not about SPAM. Their really about permission marketing (Seth Goden’s book is great for more learning on that topic). When someones Fan’s (or +Likes) your page, everything you post to that page will show up in their feed. That person is giving you permission and that’s VERY valuable. It’s also to be used with caution. If you abuse fans will learn to ignore, be annoyed with, and or Un-Like you for going overboard. Take the time to make a page with balance that represents your brand and provide content and information that fans will enjoy. They already like you so the battle is half won. But only half. The rest is in your hands.

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