Incorporating Facebook into online community engagement

1. 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…

2. The Fairytale and the Reality!

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

5. He called this club Facebook.
It turned out that it was a pretty
good idea…

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

7. Mark was
more popular
than he ever
could have
imagined.

8. 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…

9. And lots of other far more
personal information.

11. Just for a while, everyone
forgot that…
Nothing in life is free.

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

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

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

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

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

19. For a start the rules
kept changing.
So it was very
hard to keep up.

20. Then, club members were
surprised to discover that
Mark now owned their photos
and videos.
Including all those funny
pictures of their cats!

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

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

24. People started to wonder whether
they could really trust Mark.

25. And then Mark had another great
idea for a new type of Facebook
page.
He called them
“community pages”.

26. “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

27. You have no control over these
Pages!

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

29. It worked.

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

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

32. No one cared very much.

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

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

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

38. Members (mostly) want to relax.
Not think.

39. Member (mostly) want to have
fun.
Not take things too seriously.

40. Of course, this isn’t an
ironclad rule.
But it’s a reasonable rule of
thumb.

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

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

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

45. Or if we don’t have a positive
story to tell about who we are and
what we do…
they will completely ignore us.

46. So our advice is…
Keep it entertaining.
Keep it informative.
Keep it to a minimum.

47. Now, different organisations tried
using Facebook in different ways.

48. As a service channel.

50. This kind of worked.
Sometimes.

51. But sometimes, not
so much.

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

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

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

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

57. …for hours on end.

58. So our advice is…
Use Facebook to promote your
consultation.
Don’t use it to run your
consultation.

59. And then, there’s the apples.

60. You know which apples we’re
talking about.

61. The bad apples.

63. And the really, really annoying
apples.

65. 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.

66. These apples are
so bad, they
have a special
name…
The TROLLS!

67. Trolls take great delight in
behaving badly.
No, not badly, appallingly!

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

69. Which is where we come in!

70. With our 24/7 Facebook
moderation service.

71. It’s not free.
But it is reliable.
And responsive.
And very cost effective.

72. For 24/7 Facebook Moderation
www.fbmoderation.com
For a Facebook Practice Guide
www.bangthetable.com/freebies
/facebookpracticeguide