Hey everyone,

I am feeling pretty flustered and don’t know what to do at this point. When I first stgarted working for my rather high-end jewelry store, we had like maybe a couple thousand fans or less. I helped mainly with engaging fans while my boss liked being responsible for actually growing our fan base. The problem is that I disagree with his method – and have told him so: several FB accelerators via giveaways partnered with all the local radio stations. This has resulted in us having over 9000 fans, which looks good on paper but as I pointed out to him, the vast majority of these people only liked us to try to win something – most of them will probably never step foot in our store because they are not our clientele or core market. He feels that as long as you’re throwing nets out into the ocean, you’re bound to catch a few fish. I find this a waste of time and resources and have always advocated a more targeted approach – I’d rather fish where the fish are.

The result is that now the comments we get are people begging for the next giveaway so they can get something for free, or crass comments, or rants if I try to steer the conversation away from negativity. I hardly ever delete comments or ban people because I just handle and diffuse it, but it’s becoming the norm and I don’t even feel like bothering to post anything anymore. My boss still thinks any interaction is a good thing but I think we’re reaching the point where we could do more damage to our brand if we keep going in this direction.

Can you gracefully WEED OUT people who don’t fit your market? I’d like to use the page for meaningful and helpful interactions, like I did in the beginning. If I can’t weed out, what else can I do to keep things civil and positive?

It is difficult to change someone’s mind but can sometimes be done with data that backs your claims. Do you have access to anything that promises your way will be better? That is more likely to get his attention.

As for the people on the page not behaving, diffusing is great, but if you feel that someone is no good for your audience and brand, I would consider banning them. I know what you mean about people asking for things, I have a fanpage that was built on giveaways and such and they are always asking for free things, too.

I would say that regardless of his thoughts, there are things you can do to work on the brand and fanpage without ignoring his requests. Join local groups, build connections with other companies in the area, share their content, find fans that do engage and support them with a free giveaway, etc. No one has a perfect client (atleast I dont think so) we all have walls to climb and that helps us learn, your boss is just an obstacle, you can do this!

When I try and explain to business owners how they can leverage Facebook the “right” way, I always refer back to the following story about the Natural Running Store …

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-service-allows-startup-to-outpace-the-competition/

Hope that helps

That is a tough question @rowenafinn – I still think there is a little social proof of having a large page but if all these people do is complain about not getting free stuff, then it can be damaging.  

I do agree with @scottlinklater that they can have potential friends who may buy from you.  And I think it’s a great idea to see if there is something more in their price-range that they would buy.  
The problem with running too many contests and giveaways is that you condition your audience to expect that.  It’s a good growth mechanism but it can backfire.  
Then the other problem is trying to change the mind of the boss.  If they don’t think there is a problem, it’s hard to convince them that there is!  Maybe you could try formulating some type of survey that would show him that the audience only want to get the free stuff.  Or track how many sales come from social media by offering a coupon with a tracking code.  
Tough problem!