Another work week is at it’s end. After yet another tradeshow (Magic in Las Vegas) and the Transworld Skateboarding awards in LA last Thursday night it’s time to get back on the “regular” grind on Tuesday (Monday is President’s Day). Here are some more Facebook tips that hopefully help you in the social media stratosphere.

1. Promotions guidelines
Want to do a giveaway on your Facebook page? A sweepstake? Better have a look at the promotional guidelines of Facebook. Their rules and regulations regarding promotional activities on your page are pretty crazy.
You need to run any kind of promotion or giveaway on a special created tab. And those (additional) tabs aren’t visible from a mobile device FYI. (Nice fail Facebook!)
People also can’t enter a giveaway by simply “liking your page”. And you can’t notify winners through a Facebook message or chat.
These are just a few examples. So do yourself a favor and read the promotional guidelines before your page gets (temporarily) shut down.

2. Install Facebook comments on your website
With less and less people surfing the web (on their phones) and more and more people getting their news through social media, the comments on your website become less meaningful.

I was stoked to see that Thrasher Magazine switched to Facebook only comments on their website in mid 2011. Even though the number of comments per post went down, the comments that were posted were real ones. No random hate rants and way less cuss words. Why? Because now it shows who the person behind the comment is.
Tony Vitello of Thrasher told me: “We wanted accountability with our commenting and their system makes the most sense right now. It’s not perfect, but it’s simple and relatively low maintenance.”
I’m not of a web nerd myself but ask your webguy or Google it, it won’t be difficult to install the Facebook comments on your website.

Because of the Facebook comment system the Thrasher website content gets around very quickly too. For example, if I leave a comment on, or like, a post the Thrasher website, all my personal Facebook friends see that in their newsfeed. And not that I’m such a huge influencer among my friends, but if my friends comment on something (or like it), there is a big chance that I’m interested in that content too.
This works already for comments within Facebook, but I think it’s good to get your website involved too.

3. Geo-tag if needed (fan page only)
I rarely use this but if you want you can specify which fans see your update. As a brand I think you should show your fans that you are represented all around the world.
But if you want to promote something for a specific country, in a language that you normally don’t use on your Facebook page (French, Spanish, etc), they geo-tagging might be a great tool to use. If you do this just be prepared for questions in this language. Vous parlez Francais?
People travel as well, so I could be in LA today and in Amsterdam tomorrow, so I might just be able to attend this party your distributor is throwing on the other side of the world.
How to geo-tag? Below the status box, and left of the “share” button, click on the arrow. Click on location/language and fill in who you want to reach. You can get really specific, see the screen shot below.

Note: if you’re an admin for the fan page you will always see any update (even if another admin posted it)

4. Create an event page for all your events
Whether you are throwing a house party, going on tour with your band, or have a video premiere, always create an event for it on Facebook. People are moving away from the computer and spending more time on their smartphone (iPhone) and tablet (iPad).
Once you’ve create an event all your fans can decide to “join”, “maybe” or “decline” the invite to the event. If you hit “join” or “maybe”, the event gets put in your calender of upcoming events.
Say its the night of the event, and you ended up in the area of the event. You pull out your phone, open up the Facebook app and go to the events tab. Now select the event you want to go to.

You can see all the details of the party. Click on “Get Directions” and Maps app will open (on your iPhone) with the directions to the event.
Great way to get to last minute people that weren’t sure to come out. Or even the people that were already on the way and needed last minute directions.

5. Use different wording when posting on multiple pages
More than a few brands (in skateboarding) belong to the same owner/distribution. But every brand has a different image and voice. That’s why the other brand(s) were created right? To do something different and attract a different consumer.
I understand if one person handles the social media for multiple brands, but I think it’s very important to make sure to have a different voice for each brand. You do have different logos, ads, colors and products for each brands, so why not extend that to the social media.
If you post the exact same text, photo, video, etc on various brand pages, than why did you create another brand after all? Even though a lot of people know that some brands are connected with each other, every brands has it’s own fans and consumers. So post different stuff, at different times, with different words. If you have more than one person for your social media it will be good to give each person one, or multiple, fan page(s).
I also strongly recommend to not share the posts of other brands, but rather tag the other brand (page) in your post.

Questions or comments? Drop ‘em below!
Or shoot me an email at [email protected].

Also check out “Five Facebook Tips #5” from last week.