Close to a year ago, I started a Facebook Page for my Art of the Business blog. I did this for several reasons:
- My own personal Facebook account, facebook.com/rebeccacoleman is, well, personal. It has lots of photos of my son, and I often talk about stuff that we are doing together. Having a separate page for my business seemed like a good way to separate business and personal.
- I teach this stuff for a living, for pete’s sake! I am always telling people they need to have a Facebook page for their business. I needed to have one, too.
Frankly, my Facebook business page is just not successful. How do you judge the success of something?
- Numbers: how many people do you have following you?
- Quality of interactions: are people responding to your posts? Are they continuing the discussion, “liking” your comments, posting their own links?
Although I have over 100 fans, the quality of the interactions is not high. I get the occasional “like” (thanks, Dave!), but for the most part, it’s just me. Posting links. Other than that, mostly silence.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not slagging the Facebook Page. I have other pages I administrate that are incredibly successful. The Beast of Bottomless Lake page helped us sell out our OIFF screening, for example. That page has over 400 fans, and lots of interactions.
I’ve had a couple of conversations with some other consultant-like folks over the past couple of months, and many of them agreed with me: the FB page is not always the right tool for folks like us.
Here’s what I’m going to do. Facebook has a new list feature, where, like Twitter, I can create a list of my friends and group them. I’m simply going to make a list of folks that I know via business, and don’t want to share photos of my son with. Then, when I post, Facebook gives me the option to exclude those people from my post.
If you have a Facebook page, how’s it going? Is it working for you?
Hi Rebecca, I did try that, but it still was complicated. All your family, still see all you biz posts, so in a way your spamming them.
If they don’t mind then it’s not an issue…I wish you luck! Facebook needs to fine tune all that. I found there were multiple posting type issues, and you have to make sure when you add friends, you add them to the right list.
I’m in the same boat. Very few followers on my FB page and I don’t update it as much as Twitter and my blog. Not ready to shut it down completely, but it is pretty comatose right now.
I see you made the decision! I actually did not know that you could exclude via FB groups. I still have a LOT to learn about Facebook… Yeesh(though I will say they change it an awful lot, so what’s here today may be gone tomorrow!)
I am still undecided about what to do about my own Facebook groups. I will admit to being short on time so the group ends up short on attention. Not ready to give up on it, until I spend more quality time with it!
I saw our buddy Dave started his own Facebook group. I am looking forward to watching how he grows it.
Hi Bec. When I started my blog Greenroom: professional and independent theatre in Queensland a little over a year ago, I made the decision not to create a FB page to accompany it, despite the fact that it was the received wisdom at the time. Whilst many readers of Greenroom are friends on FB, I believed that one more social media site was probably one too many, given our busy lives – especially mine. I did create a Twitter account to serve more far-flung theatre colleagues, and to create new contacts, i.e., those not already on FB. My key strategy was/always has been to drive all of my satellite social media presences (Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo etc.) to a blog as hub. When a new post goes up on Greenroom, an automated tweet goes out (WordTwit) and I provide a hot link to it it with a personal note on FB. FB readers definitely increase the readership spike when posts go up. Works for me. Oh, and yes, family are also on FB, but since they’re theatre nuts anyway, it works fine! 🙂
Interesting thoughts! I’ve been wondering about this one lately too. I think it depends on the organization and what you’re putting out there. I’ve heard that a lot of people are using facebook as a search engine now so for people promoting events it’s great to have your facebook event up, otherwise maybe people are becoming too indundated with info on facebook and don’t want to get it that way. What’s the solution I wonder?
Hi Rebecca – I hear you and I think we are coming to a new age where business and personal may no longer need to be kept separated. What is wrong with your clients seeing pictures of you and your son? Seems to me this is part of the relationship building and also a way to show we are real. While I get and subcribe to a certain extent keeping the boundary separate, (I mean I work at a Business School?!!), I am thinking more and more that we are missing out on opportunities to connect by doing so. I made a choice when I came on Facebook to include my students, and so far I think it has made difference in breaking down the barriers between us. Of course this is a personal choice, and I use Linked In for my strictly related work connections but have chosen to be more free on FB. Particularly when you look at what the younger people are posting – which we older folks shudder at – I hardly think anything we post will offend anyone.
I certainly am an advocate for showing the personal side of business. When I do workshops, I always encourage businesses to show their personal sides: talking about birthdays in the office, for example. It’s boring and reads too “corporate” if you don’t talk about anything but business all the time.
But I tend to not do that on my FB page, because I already do that on my personal FB page!
Interesting to hear your thoughts on a Facebook page for your blog. I’ve often thought of starting one, but I’m not sure if I want another avenue to worry about. Then I wonder if I’m missing out on a valuable promotion tool. Of course, I still need to secure my own domain too, so perhaps I should worry about that instead.
I have a facebook page that is personal that I essentially use for business. I do not have a Facebook Fan Page where people have to sign up to be my fan. I never quite like the whole idea of that – perhaps it was the symbolic pedestal it implied. Although I hold a good boundary of what I do or don’t post on Facebook, I enjoy that my personal is professional and vice versa. As an artist, I do not think it would work any other way actually. It is just a matter of maintaining good boundaries.
Oh sure, I’m move into town and there goes the neighborhood. 😉
Rebecca, I think it’s commendable that you’re giving it up. As we all try to move forward it’s good to recognize what’s not working for you. Then you can drop it and move on to what does.
Congrats on recognizing it was time to let go. =)
P.S. Is subscribe to comments missing from the new house?
I was just about to start a Facebook page for the Studio. Because of this post, you and Kate (above – hello @Dramagirl) have convinced me otherwise. Thank you.
What a perfect example of what to “stop doing”!
I have been thinking of setting up a FB fan/like page to accompany my blog but have been holding off. My main concern is essentially why you are giving up on yours, fear that people won’t come. With the blog my stats are private, it is only me who knows how many or little visits I get. With facebook it is out there, you don’t have fans it shows. I’m also concerned that what fans I would have would all be friends and then one runs into the redundant post issues. Ah, the dilemma, to facebook or not to.