Getting your updates to appear in the coveted news feed is more challenging than ever.

I don’t have answers as to how the elusive Facebook algorithm works.

What I do have are some suggestions on how to ensure that your page posts are being seen by your fans to give your page the maximum visibility.

#1: Train Your Audience to Watch for Your Content

You want to make sure you are delivering good content so that your audience won’t want to miss a thing. The best way to do this is to work toward building super fans. Use these Facebook marketing strategies.

When you are delivering good content, interacting and building a community, your fans will come to your page on their own when they haven’t seen your posts. Be consistent with your posts (i.e., posting every day at 10 am, for example). Then your fans will know when they are missing something and come seek you out.

Your fans will come find you if you are delivering good content.

But then what? You can’t expect your audience always to come to you. That’s why you must take the next step.

#2: Educate Your Audience to Highlight Your Stories in Their News Feed

The good news is that Facebook pages are showing up in the news feed. People have a choice when viewing posts to highlight the story. When someone highlights a story, it indicates to Facebook that the person wants to see more stories like that one.

When a story has been highlighted, there is a little blue triangle in the upper-left corner of the story. Facebook typically chooses which stories to highlight based on past interactions, so getting more engagement (post likes, comments and shares) can also help indicate to Facebook that your page posts are important to a user.

The blue triangle in the upper-left corner indicates a highlighted story.

You can encourage highlighting by telling your audience to highlight your post so that they continue to see your posts. You won’t get any statistics about how many people actually do highlight your post, but you may get instant feedback and a better chance of showing up in the news feed!

Educate your fans on how they can keep getting your posts.

Notice how you can highlight a story by clicking on the blue arrow in the upper-right corner of a post that has not been highlighted.

To highlight a story, click the blue arrow in the upper-right corner.

Highlighting a story may be a good start to increasing your visibility, but there are other steps you can take to ensure it.

#3: Tell Your Audience to Create a Favorite Pages List

Again, make sure your audience knows that pages aren’t showing up in the news feed as often. If you are delivering good content and building relationships, your audience will want to stay in contact with you.

A way to ensure that people always see your posts is to have your fans put your page on a special “favorite pages” list. You will have to educate your audience how to create this list (sharing this post with them would be an easy way to accomplish this goal!).

The easiest way to create the favorite pages list is to follow these steps:

1. Go to your Lists on the left sidebar of your home page and click More.
2. Click Create a List in the upper-right corner.
   

   Create your new list.

3. Enter the name of your list in the pop-up box (you can call it “Favorite Pages” or “Tech Pages” or whatever makes sense for the pages that you will be adding to this list). Click Create.
4. On the right side, you can type in the names of the pages you want to add in the search box. But the easiest way is to click the drop-down menu Manage List and select Add/Remove Friends.
   

   Select Add/Remove Friends.

5. All of your friends are now showing in the pop-up box, but in order to see pages as well, you need to select Pages from the drop-down menu in the upper-left corner of the pop-up box. Now you can easily select the pages you wantto be on this list.
   

   Find the pages you want to add to the list by selecting Pages.

After you have created your list, all you have to do to see all of your favorite page updates is to click on the Favorite Page list (or whatever you titled your list) on the left sidebar under the Lists heading. You can also make this a Favorite item so it’s always showing at the top of your left sidebar as shown in this screenshot.

Add your list to your favorites so you can access it with just one click.

To add a list to your favorites, navigate to your lists by clicking More next to the lists on the left sidebar and navigating to the list name. Click on the pencil icon and then select Add to Favorites.

Select Add to Favorites.

#4: Leverage the Facebook Subscribe Button

Because personal profile posts are being shown more in the news feed, you may want to start using your personal profile more for business. Facebook terms state that you aren’t supposed to “use your personal profile for commercial gain” as shown under their Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, point #4.  But you can talk about your business! Direct people to your blog posts, give helpful tips and talk about what events you are participating in.

If you are worried about privacy, the Facebook privacy settings have gotten better so you can control who sees each update. Your customers want to connect with you personally on Facebook (not just via your Facebook page) and the Subscribe button will give them that personal connection.

If you are the face of your company, or are networking and connecting with people, leverage the Subscribe button by enabling it. Find out more about the Subscribe button in our post here.

Mari Smith recently included similar posts on her Facebook page and her Facebook timeline. Her post to her personal profile got almost 4 times as much engagement (comments, shares and likes). To be fair, she does have almost twice as many subscribers (113,000) as fans (60,628) but that in itself is amazing as she has had her Facebook page up for years but her Subscribe button open for less than a year.

Mari's post on her fan page.

Mari's similar post on her personal profile got almost 4 times as much interaction.

One other powerful part of the Subscribe button is that Facebook is giving suggestions of whom to subscribe to within Facebook. Navigate around and you will see these suggestions in the upper-left corner of certain pages. Yet another way you can gain exposure with a new audience!

Facebook suggests "People To Subscribe To."

I hope these four suggestions give you some new ideas on how to gain visibility for your business with both your Facebook page and by adding your Facebook profile into your marketing strategy.

How about you? What do you think about the decreased exposure of Facebook page posts? Have you found your interaction has gone down or stayed about the same? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

You know it’s important to measure your social media marketing performance, and the new Facebook Insights will make this easier for you.

Locating Facebook Insights

First things first—where do you find these metrics? They are accessed on the left sidebar underneath your profile picture by clicking on the Insights link.

Click Insights to see more options: Likes, Reach and Talking About This.

We aren’t going to cover every term, definition and nuance in this post because that would be a small book. Most of the terms have a “?” nearby that you can click on to get the definition.

You can also read more in this useful Facebook Insights Guide: http://ads.ak.facebook.com/ads/creative/insights/page-insights-guide.pdf (Note that this guide has graphs and charts that aren’t actually shown, or some are shown slightly differently than in the guide. Facebook may have changed the way they are displaying the data but most of it is relevant.)

We will cover how to interpret the best metrics to help you decipher what is going right and wrong on your page.

#1: Main Insights

First click on Main Insights and you see a graph of the activity for the last month.

The most important part of the main section is the different ways you can view the individual posts.

When you click on the individual columns, you will sort the posts by descending value in the column.

• Reach is the number of unique users who saw your post.
• Engaged Users is the number of unique people who have clicked on your post.
• Talking About This is the number of people who have Liked, commented on or shared your post, or responded to the question or event.
• Virality is the “Talking About This” number divided by the “Reach” number.

The most important of these columns are Engaged Users and Virality.

Watch what types of posts are getting the best engagement.

You will also know what type of post you’re viewing by the icon next to the post.

• Green quotations: Status update
• Film: Video
• Note with a pin: A link or an application that posted on your behalf.
• Square that looks like an outline of a person in a picture: Pictures

In the above graphic, when we sorted by Engaged Users, we can see that the top three posts are all photos. So we know that if we want to focus on getting more engaged users, we should post pictures. See what types of posts are working for you by sorting the columns.

#2: Reach

When you dive into the Reach section, you first see a chart of demographics of people who have seen any content about your page within the last week.

Below that are the How You Reach People graphs. The one on the right shows the Unique Users by Frequency in a rolling one-week time frame.

The statistic to watch here is the number of people you are reaching more frequently. This is your core audience.

Monitor how many times people are seeing your content each week.

If you are not reaching people multiple times with your posts, you may have to adjust your strategy. Experiment with posting more often, focusing on getting more engagement so that your post comes up more in your fans’ news feed. You may need to do something more involved like running a contest or Facebook ad to reconnect with your audience.

The next graph shows Page Views and Unique Visitors and below this graph is one of the most interesting areas of Insights, the External Referrers.

Watch where people are coming from. If the only external referrer is Google, you need to get the word out about your page. Guest post on websites and blogs and use your page address in the bio.

In the example below, the Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies fan page was mentioned in a review post on Social Media Examiner. Find ways to work your Facebook page address in multiple areas across the web.

Monitor which tabs people are looking at and how people are finding your page.

#3: Likes

The next area of metrics is the Likes area. This area breaks out your fans by demographics, which can be useful for future ad campaigns. The area to watch in this section is the Where Your Likes Came From graph.

Watch the spikes of Likes and Unlikes to correlate what you are doing right and wrong on those days.

In this particular page’s graph, we can go back and track the posts on the wall to see what happened during the spikes.

On November 18, eight photos were posted within a fairly close time period, which may have caused the Unlikes. On December 2 and December 6, a highly shared recipe (on this food-based page) combined with an open-ended question that resulted in big participation on both days may have been the cause for the spikes in Likes. Pay attention to what’s working.

#4: People Talking About This

The People Talking About This number is publicly displayed on the left sidebar under the number of Likes. This figure is a great measure of actual engagement.

The "talking about this" number is publicly displayed on every Facebook page.

It includes all the following activities that happen on your page over a one-week rolling period:

• Liking a page
• Posting to a page’s wall
• Liking, commenting on or sharing a page post (or other content on a page, like photos, videos or albums)
• Answering a question posted
• RSVPing to an event
• Mentioning a page in a post
• Phototagging a page
• Liking or sharing a check-in deal
• Checking in at a place (if your page has a place merged with it)

The best part of this statistic is that you can see it on any page—meaning it’s public information! Now you can tell if a page is interacting with people. Big fan numbers don’t mean that the page is healthy. The People Talking About This statistic is the one to watch. Watch your competitors’ numbers to monitor what is working for them. For an accurate picture, take the People Talking About This number and divide it by the total number of fans. Healthy pages have percentages between 1% and 5% (or more for great interaction).

The graphs on the actual People Talking About This page within Insights aren’t as interesting as the overview on the main page. Watch trends in your numbers. See in this graph how the People Talking About This number was trending downward.

In the next figure, the admins of the page took some drastic measures by asking people to click Like on a post on December 7 to increase the “People Talking About This” number. You can see the jump in the numbers reflected in the graph. If people aren’t interacting with your page, you will drop out of the news feed.

Sometimes you need to change tactics to get interaction.

The new Facebook Insights has improved how you can track the health of your page and you can immediately see when you need to make some adjustments to your strategy. Try new things, monitor what’s working and what isn’t, and take your Facebook page to the next level!

I hope this gives you some great ideas on how to use the new Facebook Insights to monitor and grow your audience.

What do you think?  What metrics are you using to help your Facebook strategy? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Facebook provides a selection of free plugins.

By the time you’re finished reading this article, you’ll understand your options for turning your website into a social hub and how to get started.

Why Facebook on Your Website?

Facebook has a grand vision: to connect the entire Internet, and every website on it, with a layer of social integration. The social network behemoth has been developing tools to assist in the spread of this vision since the introduction of the Open Graph in 2009.

Now, with over 10 social plugins available to the public (and free of charge!), website owners need to decide how best to utilize the available tools for their businesses. The first question you’re probably asking is: Do they even work?

Let’s look at some of the stats from SearchEngineLand:

• The average media site integrated with Facebook has seen a 300% increase in referral traffic.
• Users coming to NHL.com from Facebook spend 85% more time, read 90% more articles and watch 85% more videos than a non-connected user.
• Outdoor sporting goods retailer Giantnerd.com saw a 100% increase in revenue from Facebook within two weeks of adding the Like button.

The research to date has pointed to the fact that Facebook integration helps drive traffic to websites and pages, as users interact with sites and increase the “earned media” of a brand (in other words, the mentions and exposure of branded content that the company didn’t pay for—the authentic word-of-mouth).

To decide which plugins are right for your website, check out the descriptions of each plugin below, along with recommendations for types of sites it is best used with.

#1: Like Button

The Like button lets users share pages from your site back to their Facebook profile with one click. When the user clicks the Like button on your site, a story appears in the user’s friends’ news feed with a link back to your website.

The Facebook Like button is a great way to direct traffic to specific items on your site that otherwise would not have gotten the fanfare.

This is a great way to direct traffic to specific items on your site that otherwise would not have gotten the attention. For example, if you include a Like button on every page and object on your website, you might find that one user who enjoyed a page enough to click Like draws an entirely new audience of his friends to become aware of your brand where they otherwise wouldn’t have seen it.

This approach worked very well for American Eagle, which reportedly added the Like button next to every product on their site and found that Facebook-referred visitors spent an average of 57% more money than visitors who weren’t referred by Facebook.

#2: Send Button

The Send button allows your users to easily send your content to their friends. It’s different from the Like button in that the content sent between friends is communicated via a Facebook message and not, by default, through a public news feed posting as a “Liked” item would be. This button is great for content that might be better served individually.

The Send button is great for content that might be better served individually.

For example, if your business is a jewelry store, you should consider a Send button in addition to a Like button, just in case a website visitor is interested in sharing the page of a beautiful engagement ring he just stumbled across on your site with a specific few Facebook friends rather than his entire news feed (and ruin the surprise!).

#3: Comments

The Comments plugin lets users comment on any piece of content on your site. This plugin is especially handy for sites that are not built on top of a content management system (CMS) that already has comment threads built in.

For example, if your website only has product pages and no room for comments, and you’d like visitors to be able to leave comments on each page (or even only on some pages), the Comments plugin allows you this technical capability without having to build an entirely new comments solution for your web domain.

The Facebook Comments plugin is especially handy for sites that are not built on top of a content management system (CMS) that already has comment threads built in.

#4: Activity Feed

The Activity Feed plugin allows you to show users what their friends are doing on your site through Likes and Comments. This is basically a listing of the most recent activity people have undertaken on your website (provided, of course, that these people also happen to be Facebook friends with the visiting user looking at the feed).

The Activity Feed plugin shows users what their friends are doing on your site through Likes and Comments.

Unless your website is heavily trafficked with a user base that takes many actions (also tracked by Facebook Open Graph tags), there is not a lot of use for this plugin on your page.

#5: Recommendations

The Recommendations plugin lets you give users personalized suggestions for pages on your site they might like. These “personalized” recommendations are compiled automatically by the plugin, using information from the most common activity on your site.

When a user is logged into Facebook and viewing these recommendations, the plugin also takes into greater consideration activity undertaken by that user’s friends (even if the user’s friends made less-popular choices than what regularly occur on the site).

Recommendations is similarly useful to the Activity Feed—if your site is not getting high enough traffic to fill in the plugin’s box with consistently updating recommendations, it can seem like a stale information feed, doing more harm than good.

The Facebook Recommendations plugin gives users personalized suggestions for pages on your site they might like.

#6: Like Box

The Like box enables users to Like your Facebookpage and view its stream directly from your website. You can toggle the stream of your Facebook page on or off with this plugin as well, so you have the option of showing a more detailed look into the types of content users can expect to see from your page when they commit to becoming a fan by clicking “Like.”

If your Facebook page messaging stream is consistently updated with interesting content that would be engaging even if taken out of the Facebook environment, keep the stream in the box. If, however, you don’t update your page regularly and the stream is stale, omit it from the Like box settings, as you don’t want to turn off users visiting your website from becoming a fan of your brand based on a seemingly outdated or disengaging stream.

The Facebook "Like" box enables users to Like your Facebook page and view its stream directly from your website.

#7: Login Button

The Login button lets you show profile pictures of the user’s friends who have already signed up for your site in addition to a login button. This is only useful if you’re also going to add in a Registration function (below), which allows you to create a community of website users who are logged into your site (with their Facebook credentials).

When Facebook users login to your site with this plugin, they are also giving permission for your domain to access all the network-available personal information they’ve shared on Facebook, which allows your brand a greater understanding of the kind of users engaging with your website.

#8: Registration

The Registration plugin allows users to easily sign up for your website with their Facebook account. The registration process is simple for users, and generally includes input fields that are pre-filled with the users’ personal information if they are already logged into Facebook in another tab. This decreases the barrier to entry of signing up and becoming a user (and therefore a member of your community), because the pre-filled form takes one click to submit (whereas a typical account registration form has several blank fields to consider, plus that pesky process of creating a new login and password to remember!).

The Facebook Registration plugin is highly recommended to be included with any websites that require a login to participate, either in place of a traditional registration or in addition to conventional account signup options.

The Facebook Registration plugin is highly recommended to be included with any websites that require a login to participate, either in place of a traditional registration or in addition to conventional account signup options.

#9: Facepile

The Facepile plugin lets you display the Facebook profile pictures of users who have Liked your page or have signed up for your site. However, it only displays the pictures of a user’s friends (that the user is connected to on the network). It’s a visually appealing way to display the pictures of a user’s friends, especially coming in handy to surprise a visiting user when he suddenly sees his friend in an image on your site, realizing that his friend also likes the site.

The Facepile plugin displays the Facebook profile pictures of users who have Liked a page or have signed up for a site, but only if they are friends of the viewer.

If, however, the visiting user has few or even no friends who have Liked the page for your business, there are no pictures displayed. The Facepile plugin is appealing in that it can serve to entice visiting users who recognize a friend’s face in the pile to also click Like.

#10: Live Stream

The Live Stream plugin lets your users share activity and comments in real time as they interact during a live event. This plugin is similar to the Comments social plugin in that a visitor to your website can leave a comment on a page and also post that comment to his or her Facebook profile.

However, with the Live Stream plugin, visitors’ comments don’t remain permanently, and only the last 10 to 15 are displayed, depending on the height set for the plugin.

The Facebook Live Stream plugin is handy only if you anticipate hosting live events such as webinars, presentations, video viewings, etc.

Additionally, the moderator of the commentary (that’s you, the administrator of the website) cannot edit or remove comments (something you might want to do if comments are inappropriate). Instead, the administrator can ban users from the live feed.

This plugin is handy only if you anticipate hosting live events such as webinars, presentations, video viewings, etc. It should reside on the same page as the actual event, and need not be distributed on any extra pages.

Now that you know the best use cases for each social plugin, you can choose the integration(s) that are right for your site. When you do this, make sure to consider the amount of monthly traffic your site has been getting (and growing) month over month, to consider if some of the more recommendations-based plugins are right for you.

Note that the installation of each plugin involves technical implementation on the backend of your website (some demand greater technical depth than others), but Facebook has documented these details extensively to help you through the process.

What do you think? What social plugins do you already have on your website? Are you planning on adding any more? Leave us your questions and comments in the box below. We’d love to hear from you!

If you want to spruce up your page, there’s an app for that.

For example, Facebook apps can automatically showcase your YouTube channel, but they can also do much more.

You may have seen the post Top 10 Facebook Apps for Building Custom Pages and Tabs, but let’s take a step back and talk about what apps are, where you find them and how you install them on your page.

Defining Applications

When you first start your Facebook page, there will be some basic Facebook apps in the left sidebar. These Facebook apps include Photos, Videos, Links, Events and Notes. Any other app you install will be a third-party app, which means that someone other than Facebook made it.

Click Edit Page from your Facebook wall and then Apps to see your installed apps.

So how do you get more apps than just the basic ones provided by Facebook?

First you find them and then you install them. Even though that might sound simple, both of those steps are not very straightforward. Finding apps on Facebook can be particularly challenging because the Facebook search feature is notoriously bad. Then steps used to install the app can vary.

Some apps can be installed from within Facebook, others are easier to install by starting on the app website first.

Sometimes it’s even difficult to tell an Application page from a regular Facebook fan page.

An Application page will still have a Like button, a wall and sometimes its own apps installed.

There are a few key ways to determine that it is actually an application. The page may have a Go to App button right next to the App button. Underneath the name of the app at the top, you will see the App classification. And then on the left sidebar you will see the Add to My Page link as you see in the figure below.

Note the different ways to distinguish a Facebook app from a regular Facebook page.

An indication of how well the app is established is the monthly active users. In the figure above, you see NetworkedBlogs has 990,000 monthly active users, which can indicate that it is a useful and well-established app.

Facebook applications also include games such as CityVille and Mafia Wars and some of the other apps you may have seen such as Give a Hug or the Birthday Calendar.

Since applications are developed by third parties, not all of them work very well and not all of them are reputable. You may have had an issue on Facebook where you click on some post and all of a sudden you start posting strange things on other people’s walls without your permission, maybe telling them to “check out a new diet” or “see who is viewing your profile.”

If your Facebook profile starts posting strange things, you probably have clicked on a bad application.

Finding Facebook Apps

If you know the name of the application you are looking for, finding the app can be easier. You can use the Facebook search bar or go to www.facebook.com/search. Using the search tool is better because you can filter by People, Pages, Groups, Apps and more as shown in the figure below.

Filter by Apps in the left sidebar to search for apps only.

You can also find a Facebook app by taking a look at how something is posted within your news feed. Some apps will post into the news feed and you can find out more about the app by looking at the link underneath the post as shown by the HootSuite link in the following figure. If you click on the HootSuite link, you will be taken to the HootSuite app.

Apps can be found by looking at the way they are posted.

If it’s an app that only resides on a page, you can sometimes find out what the app is by looking at the bottom of the page. Many apps have either a link to their external website or a direct link to the app within Facebook as shown in the next figure. Not all apps have this feature and some are custom apps created for a specific page only.

Check at the bottom of the app on the Facebook page to find out how the custom tab was created. Not all apps have this attribution.

Another tool you can use to find Facebook apps is www.Appbistro.com. They don’t have every app listed but they do list a good cross-section of business apps.

Installing Facebook Apps

Once you have found a Facebook app, installing it can be challenging. Some apps install easier from their external website, and some are very easy to install from within Facebook. Many apps’ external websites will tell you exactly how to install it and make the installation process quite easy.

Once you click Go to App, you will need to give the app permission to access your information.

If you are installing the app from the Facebook App page, the steps will often be different if you click on the Add to My Page link on the left sidebar versus clicking on the blue Go to App button at the top of the page as shown in the NetworkedBlogs figure earlier. Usually you will eventually end up in the same place, but that Facebook “feature” makes writing directions on Facebook apps a challenge.

I usually prefer to click the Add to My Page link on the left sidebar. When you do, you will see a pop-up box where you can select the page where you want the app added.

First click the Add to My Page link on the left sidebar, and then click the Add to Page button to add the app to your page.

Now you will navigate to the page where you added the app and find the app listed on your left sidebar.

Find the app on your left sidebar after you have installed it.

After you click on the app, there may or may not be added steps to configure the app. Follow the steps as listed and you are all set with your fancy new app to dress up your page!

If you would like to move the app position on your left sidebar, click on the Edit link under your complete list of apps on your left sidebar and then you will be able to drag the app to the position you want. When you have the list organized the way you want, click Done and the new position will be saved.

Edit the position of the app with the Edit link.

So now you have the big picture on what Facebook apps are and how to find and install them.

What about you? What are your favorite Facebook apps? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Do you have a pretty nice fan base, but you’re struggling to come up with ideas to engage them on a daily basis?

One proven approach is to help your fans.

Here are 3 techniques used by some of the most successful Facebook pages. Try them on your page to see how your fans respond!

#1: Become a resource

Despite the level of connection you think you have with your fans on Facebook, many still express pleasant surprise when you respond to them personally on the social network.

Use fan names when you can, and respond one-on-one to the comments they make. This proves to fans you are listening and are receptive to their commentary and feedback, making it more likely that they will post in the future.

Moreover, invite conversation by asking your fans’ opinions on topics, or asking them to tell you what sorts of content they’d appreciate.

Everybody likes being asked, and fans feel extra-appreciated when you fulfill these desires—so don’t ask them for input you never intend to use or incorporate.

In the example below, Time Warner Cable demonstrates an inconsistent response strategy toward different users. While “Sharon” got her request attended to by the page administrator, “Regina” reports frustration that her posts are being removed instead of replied to, indicating that she had posted additional comments earlier than the final post visible in the thread.

If your brand strategy is to be a resource to all fans, it is important that you treat all fan comments in the same way by responding to all of them, no matter the sentiment.

In the responses to this status update by Time Warner Cable, several fans voice concerns with the company, but only one gets a response. Seeing this, users like "Regina" become upset about being ignored and become even more vocal.

One example of this kind of open interaction strategy working very successfully is our own continued initiative to build out a Facebook fan page community of marketers, business owners and social media managers interested in sharing knowledge about social media (as well as Wildfire!).

We have found over time that our most engaging posts, which get the most feedback from our users, are consistently the ones where we invite people to post any question they have about social media or invite them to have their pages reviewed by social media professionals.

The key is to follow up (even for just an hour) with all of the questions and actually answer them. Because the promise to answer any question is not an empty promise, the users become confident that their questions can be answered and trust the brand for it.

An excellent example of a smaller business getting engagement right with great messaging strategies comes from the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company, an imported foods store in Pittsburgh.

As of this writing, the store had just under 1,100 fans. Their social media manager told me they regularly get over 1% engagement on their posts, a great figure for their size.

In this screenshot, we can see that the store's informal and kind-mannered one-on-one interactions with its fans help to grow a loyal and happy community.

#2: Offer your services, free

What is your brand known for? What would you like it to be known for? If you provide a product or a particular service like consulting or advisement, consider offering your fans a taste of it every once in a while for free!

According to eMarketer, the #1 reason users become fans of a brand on Facebook is to gain access to exclusive content, events or sales. Your brand can capitalize on this desire while leveraging the brand’s capabilities by giving users an occasional exclusive pass to experience the business, free.

Here are several examples of companies doing this on Facebook, to the delight of their users:

Rue La La, an online boutique of designer merchandise and clothing, knows many of its fans are in tune with fashion trends and enjoy thinking about design, clothing and style. As such, one of their most popular fan page “events” is a weekly invitation for fans to join a stylist on the page for an hour of live interaction.

Because typically most people don’t have access to a personal stylist or advice from one, Rue La La creates an environment where fans can happily expect this recurring event.

Fans can post any of their style questions, and the stylist will respond to all of them within the hour, right on the fan page, free.

We use this technique at Wildfire as well.

Every week, these invitations to post are the most consistently popular updates! Even the users who don’t get their pages reviewed that week leave feedback that they enjoy watching the advice for other fan pages, and that the learning experience is valuable.

Every week on the Wildfire fan page, users are offered the chance to get their fan pages reviewed by an expert for free.

#3: Make your fan page a complete knowledge hub

When brainstorming how to entice users to join and interact with your brand, the challenge is to come up with ways to encourage them to interact with the page continuously over time and prevent disengagement.

For brands that have a rich background or require a fair amount of user education, creating a fan page containing valuable resources and information that benefit the user is essential. The goal is to capture users with an initial promotion, and to keep them returning to your page for information even after the promotion is over.

An example of a page that achieved this goal is Webroot, a software company that distributes security applications and programs.

The initial user pull is the promotion Webroot has set up on its landing page. Users visit the Facebook page for a chance to win high-value prizes such as airline tickets, electronics and kitchen appliances.

Webroot created a powerful, resource-rich page about its products and services, including a tab with educational slide decks, a full customer support portal ("Ask Webroot"), an explanatory splash page about their mobile security products and even a collection of YouTube videos about the software.

Recognizing that its promotion would drive considerable traffic to its page, Webroot created a powerful, resource-rich page about its products and services, including a tab with educational slide decks, a full customer support portal (“Ask Webroot”), an explanatory splash page about their mobile security products, and even a collection of YouTube videos about the software.

Webroot has created a resource rich page for their fans and visitors on Facebook. Not only do they include a tab for a virtual agent that users can interact with to "Ask Webroot," but they also have a collection of product related videos in the "Videos" tab and information about how to start a free trial in a separate "Free Trial" tab.

As a result, users who visited Webroot’s page to participate in the promotion were also exposed to the page’s valuable content, which gave them a reason to return. In turn, Webroot created a full-service, user-friendly community through its Facebook page, a place where fans go to access information about the company.

Now that you’ve seen several examples of companies helping their fans help themselves, what’s the first approach you are planning to take with your fan page? Putting together a library of resources? Testing the waters by giving away some free services? I’d love to hear from you! Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

UPDATE December 15, 2011: Facebook announced that Timeline is now available worldwide. Read how to get started.

When Timeline is rolled out, your personal profile will be organized in reverse chronological order, as a “timeline” of your life, like an online scrapbook. As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says, “Timeline is the story of your life… in a new way to express who you are.”

When Will Timeline Become Available?

At this point, only those who are registered Facebook application developers have the option of converting their personal profiles to the Timeline format. And only they can see the Timelines of others who’ve opted for it.

However, it’s quite easy to become a “developer” for purposes of getting access to Timeline. Read this article on how to quickly become an “app developer” and have the Timeline option for your profile.

The Timeline Cover Photo: A Great Opportunity for Creativity

For those with a creative bent, probably the most exciting change is the Timeline cover photo, an 851px x 315px canvas that you can fill with the image of your choice.

Inserted into the lower left of the Timeline cover is your profile photo. The fun is coming up with interesting and clever ways to have your cover photo and your profile photo interact.

For my cover photo, I simply made my profile photo the last in a chronological array of pictures of me:

Tim Ware from young boy to adult!

Timeline Cover Photo Examples to Kickstart Your Creativity!

Many will use the cover photo to simply put up a beautiful photo or family picture. For example, Mark Zuckerberg just has his dog and his face:

Zuck's use of the Cover Photo is okay, but...

Not that there’s anything wrong with this, but it’s a missed opportunity to have some creative fun.

For instance, Kelly Cromwell’s fairly straightforward family picture becomes:

Here's a great way to get Dad into the family photo!

Creative Approaches to Your Cover Photo

There are several ways to approach the integration of your cover photo and your profile photo to create an effect:

• Show the user observing the “action” in the cover photo
• Create a continuation of the cover photo
• Simply complement the cover photo
• Extend the theme of the profile photo
• Provide “meta” commentary for profile and cover photos.

Get Inspired by What Others Have Already Done

The following examples should help spark your imagination and give you some ideas of the possibilities.

E3 — Milan, Italy

A number of creatives at the E3 digital agency in Milan went to work designing artful and clever cover photo concepts.

Gianmarco Carrieri integrates the cover and the photo, hinting at endlessly repeating recursivity!

Gianmarco Carrieri cover photo.

Giuseppe Draicchio cleverly and beautifully integrates cover and photo.

Giuseppe Draicchio cover photo.

Alfredo Tomaselli positions his photo outside the cover, using his destructive laser glasses to immolate the old personal profile.

Alfredo Tomaselli cover photo.

Fabio Maravilla gets with the recursive barber shop mirror effect.

Fabio Maravilla cover photo.

Ivan Marino cleverly removes helmet and head, and makes great use of white space.

Ivan Marino cover photo.

Maurizio Mazzanti turns his cover photo into a movie screen, which he watches.

Maurizio Mazzanti cover photo.

Annalisa Modotto nicely illustrates a progression of thought, with an edible resolution.

Annalisa Modotto cover photo.

Ekkapong Techawongthaworn’s Experiments

Ekkapong Techawongthaworn, a student in San Francisco, created several great cover photo concepts, which he posted on his Google+ profile:

Creative profile photo integration!

Another very creative combo of cover and profile photos.

Obviously Mr. Techawongthaworn is having great fun coming up with concepts!

Other Cover Photo and Profile Photo Approaches

Below are a few more examples, utilizing various techniques and metaphors to entertain and amaze Facebook friends.

Mohammad L. Azzam creates a clever interaction between the cover and profile photos that resonates with the text content.

Mohammad L. Azzam cover photo.

Hugh Briss uses his cover photo to both say something about himself and promote his business.

Hugh Briss cover photo.

Jeremy Bronson creates a surreal and humorous integration of cover and profile photos.

Jeremy Bronson cover photo

I love how Victor Zapanta uses the barber shop mirror effect for some radical recursivity! And check how that distant road continues the effect…

Victor Zapanta cover photo.

Some Tips on How to Create Your Cover Photo

First, you can click here to download a Photoshop PSD template I made to help you create your cover photo.

Once you’ve got your cover photo and profile photo, you just need to add them to your Timeline.

How to Add Your Timeline Cover Photo

Just to the left of the vertical Timeline bar, you’ll see:

Click "Add a Cover."

Once you’ve selected the image you want for your cover photo, click “Save Changes.”

Remember, the displayed size of your cover photo is 851 x 315 pixels. If you upload an image that’s more than 851px wide, it will be scaled down to a width of 851px.

If your image, or the scaled-down image, exceeds 315px in height, you have the option to horizontally position your image. Superimposed on your image you’ll see “Drag to Reposition Cover.” Just mouse over the image, at which point your cursor becomes a hand icon, and drag the image to where you want it to be, and then click “Save Changes.”

Upload Your Profile Photo

Once you’ve added your cover photo, you can upload your profile photo, which, as mentioned above, is inset on the left side of your cover photo.

The displayed size of your profile photo image is 125 x 125 pixels, but the total space taken up is 135 x 135 pixels due to the 4-pixel white border and 1-pixel dark outline. The minimum width for an uploaded profile photo image is 180 pixels.

Your displayed profile photo is 125px square. The total space, with borders, is 135px square.

Once you’ve uploaded the profile photo you want to use with your cover photo, you can position it vertically (it is automatically scaled down to 125px in width) by mousing over the image and selecting “Edit Thumbnail” from the contextual menu. Then edit the thumbnail in the popup window to get it where you want it.

You can also continue to position the cover photo by mousing over it and selecting “Reposition” from the “Change Cover” contextual menu:

Click on "Change Cover."

Take Advantage of this Fun Opportunity for Creativity!

It’s time to flex your creative muscles! Have fun expressing who you are in a unique and creative way.

What do you think? And feel free to post URLs to your Timeline in the comments. Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

You may see your small business efforts on Facebook like David compared to the Goliath presence big businesses enjoy.

There’s a lot that small businesses can learn from the way big businesses approach Facebook, but the separation between your little company and international corporations isn’t as vast as it may sometimes appear.

In this article, I’ll show you six ways you can model your efforts after the successful campaigns run by big businesses, and some ways you can even get a leg up on the big guys.

#1: Have a plan and a strategy

Big businesses have plans for their Facebook endeavors. They’re focused on strategizing, plotting and forecasting. They have goals in mind and they know the hurdles they’re going to have to jump en route to achieving those goals.

Small business owners, on the other hand, often create Facebook pages just because they see other businesses doing so, or they read somewhere that experts say they should. But they create their pages with no real goal.

You may not have the same manpower or finances to assign to your Facebook efforts that big businesses possess, but that doesn’t mean you can’t plan ahead.

Think about what you want out of your Facebook presence. Is it more foot traffic? More sales? Or is it just more contact info to populate your newsletter mailing list? Figuring out your goals is the first step in initiating and directing your Facebook presence.

Bakers Shoes generates more Likes by offering VIP status to those who Like the page.

#2: Use custom tab applications

You’ve probably seen those sharp, shiny customized page tabs that big businesses have. A couple of years ago, companies had to hire designers to build these tabs. They were hand-coded, labor-intensive and difficult to maintain. It was a near full-time job that many small businesses just couldn’t afford.

ShortStack, along with numerous others, gives small business owners the ability to create their own custom tabs with relative ease.

You don’t have to know programming languages and you don’t even have to be a particularly adept web designer. They’ll give you the look and functionality boasted by the pages of big businesses at a fraction of the cost. These custom tab applications have really leveled the playing field, so it’s important that you take advantage of them.

ShortStack allows you to build functional custom tabs that increase awareness and maximize social media potential.

#3: Emphasize interaction

Facebook users want interaction and attention, and this is where big businesses blow the little guys out of the water.

From contests and sweepstakes to virtual gifts and sharable content, big businesses know how to give Facebook users what they want.

Unfortunately, it seems most small business owners missed this memo. Their business pages consist of a couple of pictures, a short bio and perhaps a map. But this static content will not hold the attention of your fans.

To be effective on Facebook, you’ve got to buy into the ideals of Facebook, and that means embracing engagement and interaction.

Promotional features like contests, sweepstakes and virtual gifts are available on most custom tab apps. So again, if you’re not using a custom tab app, sign up, create engaging content and be social.

80sTees.com uses a custom tab application for their Deal of the Week offering.

#4: Be available

Facebook is about the individual—your customer. Big businesses have community managers, positions that revolve around interacting with their customers on a daily basis.

Small business owners, however, often check the business Facebook page once or twice a week, responding only occasionally. But you wouldn’t feel comfortable knowing customers were in your store with no one to ring up their purchases or answer their questions, so don’t be unavailable online.

Your availability to your online community could be what motivates your next customer to come in and make a purchase, so check your Facebook page often, and respond when your fans post to your wall.

#5: Take action

Gathering feedback and looking for improvements is part of the job of a big business community manager. But taking advantage of any such data usually includes reports, committee meetings, action items and a host of other steps in the filter-up process of big business bureaucratic hierarchy.

This is where you, as a small business owner, really have an advantage. Posts to your wall from your customers become instantaneous feedback that you can use to make appropriate changes, resolve issues and even enjoy compliments. And because you’re the owner, you make the decisions. There’s no waiting for teams of higher-ups to convene and agree on a response. It’s all up to you, and you can make things happen right now.

Winner of Social Media Examiner's recent Top 10 Small Business Facebook Page contest.

#6: Be flexible

Corporate decision-making lumbers. Not only are there reports and meetings, there’s planning and marketing. Action takes a while. As a result, big business community managers have little flexibility.

But small business owners don’t have to wade through that corporate process. Want to get a bunch of people to your restaurant tonight? Let your fans know via wall post that everyone who comes in and mentions the post gets two-for-one drinks.

Have too much inventory you need to clear before the next shipment arrives? Post a today-only 25% off coupon for your fans to print and bring in. Creating a sense of urgency and offering your fans good deals is a great way to get a strong community response.

What do you think? What have you noticed big businesses doing that you’ve incorporated into your small business’s approach to social media? Leave your comments in the box below.

With the addition of the Facebook Subscribe button, understanding how your Facebook privacy works is more important than ever.

The good news is that Facebook is making it simpler to find the settings for controlling your privacy.

The bad news is that there’s a lot of confusion around the Subscribe button and what it means for privacy. So let’s start by tackling the privacy issues around the new Subscribe button.

#1: The Facebook Subscribe button

Facebook has made the subscribe setting opt-in instead of defaulted to on. The Subscribe button is designed to allow people to subscribe to your public posts rather than (or possibly in addition to) requesting a friendship. It’s a lot like a Twitter follow. You don’t approve subscribers. All of your current friends are, by default, subscribed to your posts.

You can choose to subscribe to someone who has allowed subscribers.

Whenever you update your personal profile, you can determine who you want to see your post: public, friends or custom. Custom can then include friends of friends, only certain friends, or a friends list. You may want to check out this post to help you create friends lists and also review other privacy controls: 4 Simple Steps to Control Your Facebook Privacy.

If you want to keep your profile private, you don’t have to worry about the Subscribe button at all. But if you’re interested in sharing some posts publicly, you can opt in by going to www.facebook.com/about/subscribe and clicking Allow Subscribers. You can also read more about how the Subscribe button works at that link.

Click Allow Subscribers to start the process.

Once you click Allow Subscribers, you have some settings to configure. You can always go back and adjust these settings by clicking your profile in the upper-right corner of Facebook and then selecting Subscribers on the left sidebar. Then select the Edit Settings button in the upper-right corner of the page.

Edit your subscriber settings.

Decide if you want to allow comments by anyone on your public updates. Realize that you cannot block profanity or spam on your personal updates (even though you can on a Facebook page). You can always delete comments and block people after the fact, but if you keep this setting open, watch your posts.

When you allow subscribers, make sure you are watching how you post your updates. The default is public; so if you don’t want your post to be public, use the dropdown menu to change who can see the post. You can also retroactively change who can see your posts by using the dropdown menu to the right of each post. This is handy if you “over-shared” something private.

Change your post settings when needed.

You may just choose to subscribe to people who have too many friends and aren’t accepting friend requests. If you navigate to their profile, you will see the Subscribe button, which indicates that you can choose to request a friendship or subscribe (or both).

But realize that if you do subscribe to them, your name is listed as a subscriber for public information. This is different than the “Likers” of a Facebook page, which are not visible to the public.

Your name and profile picture are publicly listed as a subscriber.

#2: Changing your Facebook privacy settings

The next thing you want to check is your Facebook privacy settings. I think that Facebook has streamlined their privacy settings and made them simpler to understand. First, click the down arrow button in the upper-right corner of Facebook and select Privacy Settings.

Then step through each of the available setting areas: How You Connect, How Tags Work, Apps and Websites, Limit the Audience for Past Posts and Blocked People and Apps.

In the How You Connect section, you can set the capabilities for people to send you friend requests, post on your timeline and more. Make sure these settings are comfortable for you. For example, you may decide to not allow people other than your immediate friends to send you messages.

Choose who can post on your timeline, send you friend requests and send you messages.

#3: Controlling how people @tag you

People can tag you in photos and posts by using the “@” symbol and then typing your name. If you want to review these tags individually and approve them, just click on the How Tags Work section in the privacy settings. (Click the down arrow in the upper-right corner, Privacy Settings, and then Edit Settings next to How Tags Work).

Adjust your settings to determine who can tag you and who can see it.

You will then have to approve each tag before it is posted to your timeline. With the new subscribe settings, this may be more critical if you are a private person and don’t want someone tagging you in a public post.

If you don’t want the hassle of reviewing each tagged post, you can always remove tags after the fact by clicking the dropdown menu next to a post and selecting Remove Tag.

Remove tags after the fact if you choose.

#4: Controlling apps and websites

Facebook apps (or applications) are third-party “plugins” that can enhance (or detract, however you might look at it) from your Facebook experience. Facebook apps can also be the biggest source of spam posts.

Make sure you know what apps have access to your data and can make posts on your behalf. Apps include games, contest apps and apps to enhance your Facebook page. Most apps are good, but you do have to be careful about which ones you accept.

It’s a good idea to review what apps have access to your information and how those apps are set up. Sometimes, as shown in this image, the app gets set to “Only Me” under the App Privacy line, which means only you can see the posts from this app. If you are using an app such as Networked Blogs, you want to make sure that it can share with others so they can see your blog posts.

Periodically check which apps have permission to post on your profile and remove those unwanted apps.

Also make sure you check what information you’re allowing your friends to bring into their apps. If your friends have access to your info, they may be able to bring it with them into apps that they’re using. To check these settings, follow these steps:

1. Click the down arrow in the upper-right corner.
2. Select Privacy Settings.
3. Click the Edit Settings link next to the Apps and Websites selection.
4. Now click the Edit Settings button next to the How People Bring Your Info to Apps They Use selection.
5. From there you will be able to uncheck the boxes of the information that you want to keep private.

Prevent your friends from bringing in unwanted information to their apps.

The Apps and Websites area is also where you control whether you want your Facebook profile to come up in public search engines.

#5: Facebook Ads

The only thing that is hidden on the Facebook privacy settings is whether you want your name to show up in Facebook advertising. The default setting is that your name can appear in advertising, but it will only be shown to your current friends.

Select whether you want your name showing up in Facebook ads.

To edit this setting, click Account menu in the upper-right corner, select Account Settings and then click on Facebook Ads on the left sidebar.

That’s what you need to know about Facebook privacy settings. Also realize that you may have easily accessible options next to posts or tags by clicking on the dropdown menus typically on the right side of a post. Make sure you periodically review your privacy settings to control any changes in privacy.

What about you? What do you think? How do you feel about Facebook privacy control? Let me know in the comments box below!

A Secret Group is easy to create and manage, and it is perfect for small-group interaction.

Keep reading to discover powerful ways these groups could help your business.

Facebook originally created Secret Groups for people to have small, intimate interactions with family and friends, but Secret Groups are also perfect for small businesses, coaches and professional development, like mastermind groups.

Why Secret Groups?

Most people think of Facebook Business pages when they think about Facebook, but businesses sometimes need private spaces for working, coordinating schedules and developing marketing and advertising ideas with a small group of people.

There are three types of Groups on Facebook.

It’s true that G+ (Google+) has created a system of Circles that allow for private conversations, but there are some nice features that Facebook has embedded within Secret Groups that are not as easily utilized in G+ as it currently stands. I’ll explain those Facebook features in a moment.

There are three types of Facebook Groups:

• Public (Open): everyone can see the Group, find it in a search and make posts
• Closed: everyone can see the Group, but only members can see (and make) posts
• Secret: only members can see the Group, see and make posts

But how secret is a Facebook Secret Group?

When you create a Secret Group, no one, except the members of the Group, will be able to find it in a search and no one will be able to find any trace of it on your personal or business Facebook profiles. And Secret Groups are not indexed by Google.

Even if you send someone the URL of the Secret Group, they will not be able to see the Group page. It’s that secret. I have even posted a Secret Group’s URL on a post in another Secret Group and no one could see the actual link at all!

You will get Facebook notifications (and/or email notifications—more on that in a moment) for each post from any member. And those posts will show up in your news feed, which can be a bit confusing until you notice the little lock icon next to any Secret Group post. So no one can read those, unless they are looking over your shoulder!

And if you choose to receive email notifications of posts to the Group, you will be able to reply to those emails and have your reply go directly to the Group comment for that post.

You will see posts to your Secret Group in your Top News Feed.

Features of Facebook Secret Groups

There are several features that I have enjoyed with my Secret Groups that any small business could use. They are:

• Group Chat: everyone in the Group can use the Chat feature at the same time. So you can have a conversation around complicated subjects to work things out without having to pick up the phone or back-and-forth emails. As far as I know, you can’t use this function on a mobile device (mobile browser or app) at the moment, though.
• Shared Document creation: the whole group can have input on one document and be able to edit what other members have put on it. This feature is similar to using Google Docs, and can be used to refine promotional text, press releases, responses to controversy, etc.

Create a document that all the members can edit.

• Private photo sharing: members can post photos that no one else on Facebook can see. For example, Secret Group members on an advertising team can discuss which images to use on an upcoming campaign. They could create albums with the name of their upcoming advertising campaigns and put several images in them to discuss in the comments or in the Group chat. You can tag the photos, but only with the names of the members of the Group.
• Shared email address: Facebook lets you create a custom email address you can use to email posts to the Secret Group page. You can email text and images. I’ll show you how to create that special email address in a moment.

How can a small business use a Secret Group?

Looking at these features, how can small businesses and coaches use a Secret Group? Here are few ways:

• If you’re a manager with staff who live on Facebook, you can create a Secret Group to keep in touch about hours, shift substitutions, emergencies and all sorts of things that a manager would normally use email or text messages for. Everyone can check the Secret Group posts for morning updates and these messages won’t show up on someone’s personal wall.
• If you have a remote virtual team working on a marketing project, you can use the Group Chat feature to work through ideas that come up randomly through the day that only need a couple of minutes of attention in the same way you would use Google Chat or any IM system.
• If you have a crisis management team using a Secret Group, you can take photos on your smartphone and send them directly to the Group using your private Group email address. You completely bypass the upload and tag process you normally use for Facebook photos. You can create group documents for how to handle a particular crisis for ready reference and be able to announce a group chat time that immediately shows up in the member’s Top News Feed.
• If you are a personal development coach, using the Secret Group system is great, even if it is a bit convoluted to get a fully Secret Group, as you will see. First you need to create a Closed Group. That way you can give out the Group’s URL and then they can click the Ask to Join the Group button (top right of the Group page). You don’t need to be personal Facebook friends with potential members for this to work. Then once everyone is a member of the Closed Group, you can change the Group setting to Secret (how to do that coming up).

Assuming you already have a personal Facebook account, follow these steps to create a Secret Group:

1. Go to http://facebook.com/groups
2. Click the green Create Group button.
3. Give the Group a name and choose the icon with the dropdown arrow.
4. Add any members who are your Facebook Friends by typing their names. You’ll see their account pop-ups; select to add them to the member box.
   If you will be including members who are not your personal friends, make sure you create a Closed Group first, then change it to Secret once all the members have joined.
5. Select the Privacy Setting and click the Create button.

There are only four easy things to do to create a Group; choose an icon, give the Group a name, select members and choose the privacy setting.

You can choose from a standard list of icons for the Group.

Give the Group a name and start to add members who are already your friends.

If you selected to create a Closed Group first, send the URL for the Group to the people you want to invite. The URL will take them to the Group page, where they’ll see an Ask to Join the Group button (top right corner of the page). Once they click that button, you (as an admin of the Group) will see their request on the right column of the Group page.

To approve people who have asked to join the Group, look on the right side of the Group page for the section called Requests. You can click the Add or Ignore link for each person who has asked to join the Group. Once everyone is in, change the Group setting to Secret. You can see how to do that next.

Adjusting Personal and Group Settings

To adjust your personal notification settings for this new Group, click the Edit Settings button at the top of the page, and select if you want to be notified when a member posts, when a member posts or makes comments, when a personal friend in the Group posts or only posts that you have made comments on.

You can also check or uncheck to be sent an email for the notification choice you made, and decide if you want to be sent chat messages. After you have figured all that out, click the Save Changes button. I suggest that you unselect the email notifications and just use the built-in notification system Facebook provides, but that’s my personal preference.

Edit your personal settings for notifications.

To adjust the Group’s settings, look for the link in the right column called Edit Group. When you click this link you have options to:

• upload an image that will be the Group’s profile image
• change the privacy setting (from Closed to Secret, for example)
• select to have only admins of the Group be able to approve members (highly suggested for all Group organizers to check this box)
• create a unique email address for the Group—click this button to create an email address that you or anyone in the Group (if you share it with them) can use to email text and images to the Group wall. You just need to add text before the @groups.facebook.com link. For example, GoldMasterMind@groups.facebook.com. If your proposed name is already taken, you will be able to change it until it is unique.

These are the settings you can adjust for the Group.

Edit the Group settings and create a unique email address for the Group.

Now you can create posts, upload photos, add links, create group documents and have conversations, all within the Facebook “cone of silence” or under the “cloak of invisibility”! I can hear you say, “But nothing is completely secret on the Internet.” I would agree with you, but as far as I can tell, the proverbial cloak works really well with Facebook Secret Groups.

I am a member of a few Secret Groups, one of which contains all the authors (of which I am one) of a certain recently published book. Our Secret Group was a lifesaver during the writing and editing phase of our book.

Because of a tremendous amount of overlapping subjects and text in the book, we were able to sort things out within the Chat, Group Chat, Posting and Image Uploading features of the Group. And we bonded very deeply over posts, comments, rants and raves. Knowing that no one else could see what we wrote helped to relieve the frustration and stress of a very demanding project.

What do you think?

What is your experience with Secret Groups? Have you used this feature yet for your business? Do you see any possibilities with a Secret Group for personal development? Leave your comments in the box below.

It’s an increasingly common practice and something I discuss with clients almost daily. But is it a good idea?

What is Fan-Gating?

Fan-gating is accomplished by creating two versions of a tab on your page—one that’s shown to users who already Like your page and one to those who have not Liked the page.

The non-fans are encouraged to Like in order to “unlock” the content behind the tab. Because information about whether a user has Liked your page is easily accessible through Facebook’s Graph API, it is relatively easy to implement a gate, or “reveal tab” as it is sometimes called. There are many companies that provide tools to do this and a list of some of them can be found here.

The reason to fan-gate is fairly obvious: to increase the number of Likes by making it a requirement to access something that is presumably desirable to your fans. This could mean access to download a white paper, receive a coupon or participate in a contest.

However, this begs the question of the value of a required Like. Should this individual be considered a true fan? Is he or she likely to remain engaged with your brand after accessing whatever content you have gated?

In this example of fan-gating, users must Like the page to learn more about the new TV show, "The X Factor."

All Likes May Not Be Created Equal

Various sources have put forth estimates for the value of a Like, ranging from $3.60 (Vitrue) to $136.38 (Syncapse). But I think most people would agree that just as in the offline world, different customers have different lifetime values.

Common sense would dictate that people who choose to Like your page on their own rather than being required to do so may have a greater affinity toward your brand. That isn’t to say that someone who Likes your page for the purpose of receiving a promotional offer won’t become a valuable fan.

The key is what you do to build a relationship with new fans after they have Liked your page. If you have provided access to something truly valuable, that person very well may stay engaged. But as soon as your posts begin appearing in the user’s news feed, if you aren’t continuing to share something relevant, he or she may quickly tune you out, hide your posts or even un-Like your page.

Liking “in real life”

It is difficult to find a true comparison to a fan-gate in the offline world. The closest thing might be a membership rewards program that provides access to special offers. But while enrollment in a loyalty program may provide certain perks, it is rarely a requirement to access basic information or services.

Imagine if you had to join a frequent-flyer program in order to get access to in-flight entertainment. Would you do it? If it was as easy as the click of a (Like) button, you probably would.

Taking some sort of equivalent action to the Like button in the offline context inherently has more friction. There is no way for companies to get consumers to opt-in to receive communications and indicate their support for a brand publicly in one easy step. That is what makes the Like button so powerful, but also so ripe for potential overuse.

The risks of required liking

One concern I have with the overuse of gated content is that it will ultimately reduce the value of a fan.

Others have written about the idea of “Like fatigue“—the idea that people will get tired of constantly being asked to click a Like button and may eventually stop. But I think a bigger concern is that users will keep on clicking until the click becomes meaningless. Once everyone has Liked just about everything, you will have greatly devalued the currency of the Like.

If your goal is simply to generate more fans for your page in the short-term, perhaps this concern may seem too distant to worry about. However, there are other risks to consider: The biggest is that Facebook is increasingly relying on data about how users interact with content to determine what gets visibility in the news feed. So if you have a large number of people who hide or block your posts it may have the effect of reducing your exposure to others.

Facebook is currently applying this filtering to apps that publish stories and it’s not hard to imagine them applying it to pages as well in the overall EdgeRank algorithm. This is a real concern if you have added lots of fans through required Liking but failed to nurture the relationships.

OK, But You Still Want Likes

Maybe you’ve decided that you aren’t going to require users to Like your page, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want them to Like it.

The act of Liking is easy, but sometimes people need a little encouragement. I appreciate how Mari Smith and Coca-Cola approach this on their pages. Each encourages people to Like but it is not a requirement.

On the surface, this may look similar to the fan-gating example above, but in this case, the content areas are all clickable without having to Like the page first.

I work with clients who run promotions on Facebook and many debate whether to fan-gate the promotional application. I always encourage clients to think about the trade-off of having people access a promotion and interact with the brand versus potentially discouraging people by putting it behind a fan-gate.

While it is impossible to do a controlled experiment to assess the impact of fan-gating, we do have data to support the argument that if you offer a fun and engaging experience, many people will Like your page on their own.

We recently ran a promotion on the Newfoundland & Labrador Tourism Facebook page where they gave away a free flight every half hour for an entire day. Participants were not required to Like, but Like buttons for both Newfoundland Tourism and WestJet (the promotion’s sponsor) were included prominently.

The result? 80% of people who entered the promotion Liked the Newfoundland Tourism page. In addition, 30% of the participants also Liked the WestJet page.

On the entry form above, users had the option to Like both pages when submitting their entry.

In another example, Social Media Examiner’s Mike Stelzner ran a contest to support the release of his book Launch. In this case, those who wished to submit an entry were required to Like the page as part of the entry process. However, the app itself was not fan-gated and this allowed anyone to view and vote on contest entries. What we saw is that nearly 80% of voters in the contest also chose to Like the page.

Anyone could access the contest and the prominent Like button at the top helped convert voters and casual observers into fans.

Final Thoughts

The topic of this post is likely to generate some strong feelings. For those in the business of selling the metric of Likes (to some extent I am one), this may border on heresy. My theory is not that trying to generate Likes is a bad thing, but rather that it is important to think about how you are accomplishing this goal and what it ultimately means for the relationship between organizations and those who Like them.

What do you think? I look forward to your thoughts and discussion. Please leave your comments in the box below.