You’ve come here for some advice about using

Facebook to engage online.

There’s a link to this guide on the last page but we

wanted to start by telling you a story…

The Fairytale and the Reality!

Once upon a time in a land far away (Boston to be exact), an IT whiz kid named Mark, started a new club.

He called this club Facebook.

It turned out that it was a pretty good idea…

Soon, hundreds, then hundreds of thousands, and then hundreds of millions of people from all across the world joined the club.

Mark was more popular than he ever could have imagined.

The club was a great place for friends and family to share stories, pictures and videos of their kids, cats, dogs, meals, hangovers, embarrassing moments…

And lots of other far more personal information.

Just for a while, everyone forgot that…

Nothing in life is free.

Mark was very happy about this, took great advantage of it, and grew very very wealthy.

What everybody forgot, was that the club was not a charity and not a public service.

Much to everyone’s surprise, it turned out that Facebook was, in point of fact, a business.

At that point the club members started taking a closer look at the club rules.

And they weren’t very happy with what they found.

For a start the rules kept changing.

So it was very hard to keep up.

Then, club members were surprised to discover that Mark now owned their photos and videos.

Including all those funny pictures of their cats!

Club members were also often surprised to find that anyone could see what they thought of the neighbours.

And many club members found it very difficult to work out how to keep their secrets secret!

People started to wonder whether they could really trust Mark.

And then Mark had another great idea for a new type of Facebook page.

He called them “community pages”.

“Community Pages” collect all the nice and nasty things that people say on the social web* about your organisation into one place.

*e.g. Wikipedia, unprotected Facebook user accounts

You have no control over these Pages!

Community Pages were basically an opportunity for Facebook to ‘persuade’ businesses and governments into setting up their very own Facebook Pages.

It worked.

Businesses and government were terrified of losing control of their brands and it wasn’t long before they all started signing up too.

Mostly these “brand” pages were used to tell everyone on Facebook what the organisation was up to.

No one cared very much.

Because Facebook is a social space, in all senses of the word.

It’s (mostly) where people go to relax and hang out to escape the stress of everyday life.

So it’s more like a pub or club than a library, university or workplace.

Members (mostly) want to relax.

Not think.

Member (mostly) want to have fun.

Not take things too seriously.

Of course, this isn’t an ironclad rule.

But it’s a reasonable rule of thumb.

Which means we have to think very carefully about just exactly how we are going to talk to the members from our “brand” page.

There’s a very good chance, that if we are boring, they will completely ignore us.

Or if we are too serious, they will completely ignore us.

Or if we don’t have a positive story to tell about who we are and what we do…

they will completely ignore us.

So our advice is…

Keep it entertaining.

Keep it informative.

Keep it to a minimum.

Now, different organisations tried using Facebook in different ways.

As a service channel.

This kind of worked.

Sometimes.

But sometimes, not so much.

Other’s tried to use Facebook for formal, sometimes even statutory, consultations.

And then discovered that Facebook’s reporting wasn’t built for this kind of thing at all.

So some poor mug had to transcribe every single comment into a spreadsheet…

…to meet auditing, archiving and freedom of information requirements!

…for hours on end.

So our advice is…

Use Facebook to promote your consultation.

Don’t use it to run your consultation.

And then, there’s the apples.

You know which apples we’re talking about.

The bad apples.

And the really, really annoying apples.

Now, there’s usually one bad apple in a barrel.

The trouble is Facebook is a HUGE barrel… so there are thousands and thousands of bad apples.

These apples are so bad, they have a special name…

The TROLLS!

Trolls take great delight in behaving badly.

No, not badly, appallingly!

Trolls post all sorts of nasty stuff wherever they think it will cause someone, generally you, as much angst as possible.

Which is where we come in!

With our 24/7 Facebook moderation service.

It’s not free.

But it is reliable.

And responsive.

And very cost effective.

For 24/7 Facebook Moderationwww.fbmoderation.com

For a Facebook Practice Guidewww.bangthetable.com/freebies/facebookpracticeguide