Top 5 Mistakes Brands must avoid on Facebook

With India amongst TOP 10 Facebook users, it certainly makes sense for brands to establish a presence there, and many have already made their mark with some of them going a step ahead and integrating Facebook Marketing in their Marketing Strategy. But to my observation, only a handful is aware of the mistakes to be avoided and then there are others who are not.

For those who are not, here’s a QUICK 5 on ‘how to go about Facebook?’

1.    Creating a Fan page and being inactive- Many companies install Facebook plug-ins on their website and direct visitors to their Facebook page which was last updated in 10000 B.C. This is certainly not good for your social reputation, rather than creating a page and not updating it, it is advisable not to have it.

2.    Too many wall posts in one day - Every post a fan page sends appears in the fan’s news feed. An individual’s (fan’s) news feed is his/her one stop destination for all the posts. It is imperative for brand’s to acknowledge the fact that a person is primarily on Facebook to socialize. If he finds his news feed inundated with only your brand’s posts then he’s likely to get irritated (especially when the posts talks about discounts, offers, etc.)  Insane posting frequency is like screaming out loud saying “come UNLIKE me”. A strategy of 1-2 posts a day is advisable.

3.    Not having conversations with fans- Having a conversation helps a great deal as it fosters long-term relationship with fans. Fans feel involved with your brand and turn into brand advocates.

4.    Deleting Negative comments- DO NOT delete negative comments. Be responsive and human. Interact with the fan who wrote it and find out why he did so. Doing so positions your brand as one who LISTENS and also helps in problem solving. At the same time, it also conveys a message to other fans that their opinions and feedback are taken into consideration.

5.    No Landing page- Facebook FBML (soon to be replaced by iframes) is a great platform to showcase our brand. You can use the landing pages to drive traffic to website, show videos, generate leads, encourage likes, announcements, etc. A landing page can be a beautiful welcome gate for first time visitors.

Somesh Khandalkar loves social media and writes frequently about it 

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Facebook privacy concerns

10:14 AM

By: Brandon Walker

As more users of the social networking site Facebook learn their personal phone contacts have been posted online, an internet security expert says the controversy speaks to the larger problem of online security. Our Brandon Walker reports.

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ALBANY, N.Y. — By now, chances are, you’ve heard, contacts from your personal cell phone can be found by signing in to your Facebook account.

Sanjay Goel is Director of Research for Information Forensics and Assurance for the State of New York. Bottom line, he says, the only way out of having your phone book online is to stop synching your smart phone to the site.

“Facebook allows you to do that and that’s at your own discretion. So one thing you can do is go on Facebook and delete your personal information. You can stop from synching your entire smart phone onto Facebook,” Goel said.

For its part, Facebook maintains only the user can see the phone numbers, not the public. While Goel says that might be true, he says the company hasn’t offered any assurances that hackers won’t be able to access your info.

Goel said, “Or Facebook itself has all of their personal information now because it resides on its servers and later on if they decide to use that information for marketing they have the ability to do that.”

While what Facebook may or may not do with your contacts might make you feel uncomfortable, this question of online security speaks to an international problem involving how to govern what’s done online.”

“Different countries have slightly different ways view of the civil rights, so it’s creating a much larger conflict worldwide,” Goel said.

A conflict Goel suspects won’t calm down until countries work together to establish a set of norms used to govern internet activity.

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