You already know why news organizations need a Facebook strategy. Here’s how that strategy works for some news sites and could meet your social media goals.
The tech news and information site CNET.com, for example, “wants it to be as easy as possible to engage with our content and other CNET readers” anywhere they are, says Rafe Needleman, editor of CNET Webware.com. “If the easiest way to do that is with a Facebook identity, then god bless, let them do it with Facebook.”
Your social media strategy should define basic business and editorial goals.
Do you want to…
- attract people back to your site?
- serve them content (and perhaps ads) directly in social media?
- let them use their favorite means, whatever platforms, apps, readers, etc., to consume your content and communicate with others about it?
The answers will inform what you do on Facebook and elsewhere.
CNET not only has a Facebook fan page with more than 31,000 fans, but also is one of the increasing number of news sites — including NPR.org and CNNMoney.com — to use the Facebook Connect application as a way to let users log in with their Facebook ID and comment on news sites. Users can also choose to have the comments run through the newsfeeds on their personal Facebook pages, which Needleman says has driven traffic back to CNET.com.
Consider, too, that on Facebook you’re having a conversation with users. You can put information on a page, run your news and video through it, let users comment, add games, quizzes and more.
You’re most likely to engage people and get them interested if you’re able to maintain the page actively and make sure the applications you put on there are interesting and enticing.
One application you may want to consider is Static FBML, says AllFacebook.com founder Nick O’Neill. (Disclosure: O’Neill and I have done some business together.) Static FBML lets you render your own HTML code on your page in a widget or app, meaning anything you can code or come up with in basic Web code — from a slide show to a quiz, game, marketing message or other wonderful doodad — you can put on your Facebook page as well.
Facebook’s coding language, FBML, is similar in structure and style to HTML, and if you don’t have that expertise you’ll need to develop it or hire it. Once you’ve built an FBML page, if that’s required, O’Neill says it can take someone as little as 10 minutes a day to maintain it well. And if you’re going to place ads to get fans, he says you should expect to spend about $.50 per fan to attract them.
You can look for editorial wins — getting users interested, engaged and maybe clicking back to your site — that are financial wins, as well. Seattle Times deputy managing editor Heidi de Laubenfels says they are working on pre-roll advertising for the videos they place on Facebook so that the ads will show wherever the video appears, on Facebook or elsewhere as the video is shared.
To be truly committed to your Facebook strategy will take resources, with key departments coordinated and working together: marketing, sales, editorial, tech, Web, and so on.
De Laubenfels told me The Seattle Times made the initial error of letting their social media be developed “on a very opportunistic level” and that “the experiments haven’t been happening in a very orchestrated or planned way.”
De Laubenfels says the Times is trying to right its previous “misguided choice” to use a profile page because it was easier for them to add news feeds there. They plan to move to a fan page, which is more appropriate to an organization (and allows more than 5,000 “friends,” a limitation of the profile page). A fan page is also more open and easy for people to see and consume without “friending.” One complication for the Times is switching the Seattle Times name and dedicated URL to a fan page.
To sum up:
- You want to use social media to drive people back to your site, but also interact with them — and “monetize them” — in Facebook.
- You want to devote some time and staff to developing creative ideas, coding and keeping your Facebook page updated.
- And you want to fit your approach to Facebook into your larger ideas of your social media strategy, which I would argue should itself be part of a larger “brand” strategy for your organization — but that’s a whole ‘nother topic.
Here are just a few resources to get you started:
- AllFacebook.com is one of the leaders and has much information about using the site, including a currently running series titled “30 Days to attract 3,000 Facebook Fans.”
- Mashable.com runs frequent posts on Facebook, including examples of work they like, such as “Killer Facebook Fan Pages,” “5 Elements of a Successful Facebook Fan Page,” and “8 Essential Apps for Your Brand’s Facebook Page“
- HyperArts.com has a guide on how to implement the Static FBML application.
What Facebook tips, tricks and guides have you got to share?
