Brenda Burch Dumont's Blog

Here are a few home truths I thought may be beneficial to readers about some of the basics surrounding a Facebook Fan Page.

Firstly, and foremost, every Facebook Fan Page (you can call them Business Pages or just Pages) has a personal Profile as its basis.  What that means is someone at your company, association, organization, ball club, etc. etc. has to have his/her own personal Profile page in order to begin the set up procedure for a Facebook Fan Page.  Whether you are Coca-Cola or Steve’s Auto Repair, the Facebook Fan Page started with someone at Coca-Cola or Steve’s personal Profile page.

Why? Well, the esteemed Mr. Zuckerberg (boy billionaire who co-founded Facebook), feels he doesn’t want faceless, nameless companies on Facebook – these companies need to be connected to a real person.

As mentioned here before, setting up Facebook Fan Pages for businesses, organizations, events, etc. is becoming increasingly difficult as Facebook allows more and more applications (apps), while continuing to change rules  consistently.

The popularity of Facebook Fan Pages is now virtually exploding.  It is estimated that currently over 1 million Facebook Pages are launched every month worldwide.

Yet, in a straw poll I took last week, not many people are clear on the advantages or what happens – or what doesn’t – when the ‘Like’ button is clicked on a Facebook Fan Page.

If you visit a Facebook Fan Page and you are not a ‘fan’ of that page, you will be directed to a different page than that which a fan sees.  Its typically called a Welcome Page.  When you aren’t a fan, you can read the various tabs, including the Wall where the status update, comments, questions, etc. take place but you can’t participate without becoming a fan.

Additionally, if the Page has a ‘Jobs’ application, you can’t apply online without becoming a fan, you can’t enter any contests you see on the Page, participate in any of ‘fan’ specials, etc. etc.  You will continue to be directed to the Welcome Page that includes a brief (and hopefully very compelling) overview of the company, event, association, ball club, etc. etc. represented on the page and the Welcome Page always includes a persuasive ‘Click on the ‘Like button’ call to action.

All Facebook Fan Pages want you to ‘like’ them, so every attempt is made for you to click that button.  There are hundreds and thousands of examples illustrating incredibly innovative ways to get you to do this.  Gals like me are working on this stuff all the time for their clients.

Ok, but remember two things at this point in time….. you can’t click a ‘like’ button if you don’t have a personal profile on Facebook, and Facebook Fan Pages have very little value is you don’t have ‘fans’ who can engage (there’s that word again – and to think Jean Luc Picard thought it up first).  Both points are really other blogs altogether.

What happens if you do click the ‘Like’ button on a Facebook Fan Page.  Then you are in with the In crowd, man!  Seriously, without addressing the answer technically, you become part of the daily statistics provided to Facebook Fan Page owners.  A Facebook Fan Page owner not only knows who ‘likes’ them, but without any privacy breaches, they have general percentages on the ages, other ‘likes’, and locations of their fans.  (They don’t have that information individually).  If you become a Fan of a Page, you can then engage (sigh) in all of the applications on the Page including applying for a job with a company, making comments to updates on the wall, indeed creating updating, virally circulating information, and you are eligible for ‘fan’ specials or discounts.  And, most importantly, every time a new status update is created by the owner of the Page you like, it will show up on the wall on your personal Facebook Profile.  (you can suppress it, but the default is to show up).  So, you are able to keep up with the latest and greatest regarding the Pages you like.  Not life-altering benefits, but it begins the dance.

What’s the dance? Well it’s Brenda’s version of the basics of social media.  If you ‘like’ a page then you are dancing, if you then engage with the company/association etc. through comments and questions, they will ‘engage’ with you back, there is engagement!, possibly a marriage if you buy their goods or services.  It’s a beautiful social media thing!  I guess the downside is that divorce is very simple.  You can ‘unlike’ a page in a single click from your personal profile page.

So, in a nutshell, every retailer must have a Facebook Fan Page so they can dance and then become engaged with their customers.  As always, any questions, we can engage through this blog.

As often mentioned in my blogs and Tweets – Mari Smith is considered the premier expert on Facebook .  Here is a link to her latest overview on using Facebook for business and pleasure with some very valuable ‘home truths’. There is a bit of advertising at the bottom of her blog for the upcoming Facebook Webinar – you may want to consider attending or have someone in your Marketing department attend.  I’ve signed up.  Here’s Mari’s Link -

Facebook Marketing: How To Balance Personal and Professional”>

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Retail, social media, social media recruiting by Brenda