Facebook // for Business

[Aminirus]

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Hello there, I am Aminirus.

I've used facebook for many years now and thus have learned many of its ins and outs when it comes to using one for business endeavors. Facebook and other social media are listed as some of the top sources of helping promote, market, and even inform your clients, members, and players about your business, game, website, or whatever else comes to mind. Before I get started, I'm going to let you know that not everything in this guide may be full proof. The information I offer is from my own personal experience with using Facebook for my game Wild Howlz and for promoting myself as an artist. I also have experience with helping others to create and run Facebook for coaching and writing.

Also, I am basing this on a computer standpoint, so things I may say are located in one place may be different between the computer and phones. I personally do not use facebook or social media on my phone because of the fact that it says in their Terms of Service that it gives them the right to take images from your phones gallery, look through and use your contacts and emails, and overall keep track of how you use your phone. No thanks

First, when you sign up for Facebook, you're creating a personal account. View as this as like your house. Your personal account is for people in your house and your family and friends. Use this personal account to share information about yourself, the owner. No, you do not need to have a picture of yourself, but it may appear more professional to your members depending on the business. Although, even with my personal account, avoid posting offensive words and images as this could potentially turn people away.

 

Pages vs Groups

Facebook has the option of creating a group or page. You can do this by going to the top of the page and click the small downward arrow beside the bubble with the question mark in it. When you click on that, it brings up a small menu and will say create a page and create a group. Before you click either one, review which one is best suited for you.

Pages// I had originally started out with creating a page for Wild Howlz. Pages are aimed for more those who want to post mostly marketing ads and promotional offers. You can purchase ads and select a target audience for those ads. However, it also has a huge negative downside. If you're posting just information, only 8-10% (could be lower, so don't quote me this number) will actually see that post. If you add a link to a website or page outside of Facebook, this drops down to a whopping 4%. That means, if you have 1,000 "likes" only about 40 of those people will actually receive the post in their Newsfeed. 

Newsfeed? 

In short, Newsfeed is the material, posts, you receive from everyone and everything you watch and like on Facebook. The Newsfeed is like your friends sharing you their daily dose of gossip they heard about that day and its all compiled into one location.

So, Pages is really only good for marketing and I personally do not see it worthwhile for those wishing to share information and updates about their business, like your game. Just like the Newsfeed, there is a Page Feed, which can be found on the left side bar near the bottom. However, even myself, I forget about this and thus rarely ever check it, so I do not receive many Page related updates.

Groups // In regards to this forum being for games, I would highly recommend Groups as your choice of keeping up to date and in contact with your members. Groups may not have the heavy marketing material that Pages does, but for game owners, you are mostly looking to post information and updates, correct? Occasional links to shops and sales? and overall changes to the game? 

If you say yes, then Groups is what you want to create as well. When I learned the hard truth about Pages and how so few of the members where actually receiving the information updates, I jumped right over to Groups. All the posts you make in groups will show up in all your member's Newsfeed, so no worries about anyone missing something. Groups also has some different options compared to Pages, including polls and adding files so members can download them. 

The rest of this content will be how to use Groups for your Business and/or Game

Step 1: Follow the prompts and setup for Creating a Group. Keep in mind that if you do not fill out something fully, you will be able to go back and change it later.

Step 2: Add a Banner! The banner can be quite important as a visual to show prospective members what your Group is about. I highly recommend adding the title of your business, group, game, etc into the banner. The main reason I say this is because the name only shows up to the left in a not so obvious text. Try to have something that fills up the banner space and easy to look at but still pops a bit.

Step 3: Posting // When you create a group, posts are made by you, your personal account. Thus, you will see an image of yourself (or whatever you chose as your profile pic) within the posting box and the words "write something..." next to it. When you click on the "write something..." that is where you can type. You will also see a few options pop up. At the bottom, you will see 4 small gray images. A camera, a half person with a + next to them, a smiley face, and an upside down tear drop sort of image. The camera is for attaching an image or photo to the post; thus, when you're done, the image will show up with the text on top when you hit enter. The half person is for "tagging" someone. When you click on it, a new line will show up that will say "With" and give you a space. Here you would type in someone's name. The purpose of this is to make sure that person receives the post within their Notifications. Notifications are located at the very top of the facebook page in the blue header and look like a world. Notifications main purpose is to inform you when another group, page, or friends makes a post. The smiley face is for various emoticons and the tear drop is for putting in your location at the time of the post. Location can come in handy for if you are selling or going to be present at a convention or meeting and want your members to potentially show up.

Step 3.2 Posting Gadgets // The other posting options you have are located at the top. Most of them are pretty self explanatory and if you hit the 3 gray dots, you'll see even more posting options. One that I use for Promoting special offers is the Create an Event option. This lets you post an image, start and end date, and links in the description and it'll be sent out to all your members for it they want to participate or not. The other option I really like is Creating a Poll. This comes in handy for asking simple questions or getting votes on what sort of updates your members may prefer. You can't post images for polls, but either way, it can be quite useful.

Step 4: Your First Post / Pin It! // I would recommend this for everyone actually. Make a post and attach an image to it related to your business but maybe just say "Welcome to the Group" or something basic like that. Within the post text, welcome all new members to the group and state out some rules you'd like them to follow. The rules I recommend should regard of what sort of content members can post and share and to briefly remind members that content within the group, especially for games, is copyrighted to the company or artist and cannot be sold or redistributed and that the content in shared in good faith that members will respect the content is not theirs for personal usage unless told otherwise. Rules are also important to help prevent at least many trolls from romping around in your group and causing chaos. 

To "pin" the post, once you have hit enter, go to the top left corner of that post and click on the downward facing gray arrow. A menu will pop up and so just select "Pin Post". Pinned post remain at the top of all the posts you make regardless. You can also use this menu to edit or even delete a post you no longer like. 

Step 5: Editing and Understanding your Group Settings // First you can find this just beneath your group's banner. Next to "share" you will 3 gray dots. Click on that and another menu will pop up. "Manage Group" will let you see you the activity in a smaller scale between the group's admins and members and you can view other reports there as well. Click on "Edit Group Settings" and here is where you can update information you may not have fully filled out during the initial group creation. Here, I would also recommend scrolling down to "Web and Email Address" and changing it to the name of your group, something that will be easier to type in and share to others. If you don't change this, then it'll remain as a bunch of numbers and letters. Next to look at would be the "Privacy". My own group (based on the time I made this guide) is a Closed Group. Members can still find it, but cannot see the content till they are accepted. Since Wild Howlz is still in development, I don't want to share all content publicly. If you become a member, that means are you accepting the group's rules regarding the posts you'll be seeing. A Secret Group comes in handy for when you want to share content with only a special selection of members. You can send them an invite or share a link and that will be the only way they will be able to find and join the group.

Posting Content and Frequency

I've heard and many things where people say to post 2 to 3 time a week and sometimes even more. To me, this mainly depends on the target of the group. Though I would still advice to post a little something maybe once every 2 weeks to show you're still alive and kicking to your members. It doesn't have be anything fancy, just could even be a short sentence, but it lets members know you're still doing stuff and not abandoning. 

Messaging 

This can be important. You can view all private messages at top of the facebook page in the blue header. It looks like a word bubble with a lightning bolt in it. Click on that and it'll bring up any private conversations you are having. Click on the one you wish to answer to and then type in the text box provided in the box that pops up at the bottom of the screen. Looks like an instant messenger box but it is for a private message. Just type what you want to say and press enter and it'll be sent to the recipient.

 

 

You can view my own group as an example: https://www.facebook.com/groups/wildhowlz/

Have other questions or want me to add something to this guide? Just leave a comment below and I'll be sure to update the guide for you and others.

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