January 19, 2012

If you don't have a Facebook page for your business, it's not the equivalent of trying to operate without a telephone and modern plumbing. But social media is something almost no business can afford to be without.

Social media allows a business to connect directly with its consumer base. A business with a Facebook page is approachable, personal and accessible.

Before the advent of Facebook, businesses relied on press releases and advertising to get the word out about sales or product developments that might interest customers. Compiling those took time and money. But the amount of information a company can disseminate now is constrained only by the number of times the person in charge of social media can hit the Post button.

The ease of disseminating information, coupled with a general lack of Facebook etiquette, can become a problem in its own right. And some common social media behavior can have serious negative repercussions. Below are four offenses business pages commonly commit.

1. Overposting

Because the only constraint to posting on a business Facebook page is the willingness and stamina of the poster, many businesses try to break their own posting records every day. Every thought the poster thinks is deemed essential public knowledge, and it's shouted from the Facebook rooftops with gusto.

Overposting clogs up users' newsfeeds. Your business’s postings become white noise and an annoyance. Then, they become spam.

When customers feel that your page has spammed them, they will either hide your business from their feed or delete you from their list. And once they delete you, the follower is unlikely to reverse their decision.

How much is too much? If you're posting more than once or twice a day, you risk alienating your customers.

2. Oversharing

Oversharing is not overposting, which is talking too much. Oversharing may be treating the business’ Facebook page like your diary or your political soapbox. Treating your company’s social media page as anything except a PR platform is oversharing.

It's fine if you want to inject a little personality into your promotion platform. But there’s a fine line between "personality" and "personality crisis," and once you cross the line, your page is toast. People will hit the "Hide postings from…" button faster than you can say "Ron Paul Forever!!!" (Oh, and turn the caps lock off.)

3. Poor writing

Many businesses cut a corner by writing their own social media content tor farming it out to an intern with poor grammatical skills. Your Facebook feed come across like the the local furniture-store owner who does his own TV commercials. Unless that’s the aesthetic you’re going for, consider having somebody professional look it over.

And by professional, we don’t mean your text-speak-fluent "resident young person." Bad writing (multiple misspellings, clunky prose, the overuse of emoticons and abbreviations) makes your Facebook page look unprofessional. How many people want to patronize a business projecting a voice that says essentially, "Uh, yeah, whatever"?

4. Lack of moderation

Your Facebook Wall is like your community bulletin board. So, it will probably collect graffiti. Personal musings, links to dubious sites, pictures of somebody in a swimsuit—whatever it is, random crud will clutter up your page. You have to be diligent to keep your Facebook page spic-and-span. Otherwise, you risk having a page where law has no name.

While you don’t need to put a full-time hall monitor on your page, you have to clean things up once in awhile and delete postings that don’t fit the purpose of your Facebook page.

Jacob Harper co-founded the Vintage Vice clothing store and apparel brand in 2006 when he was 23. He sold Vintage Vice in 2009 and now works as a teacher and writer. He is currently a writer for the weekly political sketch show Top Story! Weekly at the iO West in Hollywood.

Image credit: iStockphoto

Related Topics

• Marketing

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Jacob Harper, Article, social media practices, Facebook

Join the conversation ( 9 )

• Kalmar Gyula 4 months ago

  

  Hi, do you or does anyone know how can people be tagged on a video from youtube or vimeo posted on a facebook page (so a business profile, not a personal profile)thanks

  • Sanford's Kitchen 4 months ago

    

    i have had to use my personal profile to tag people on my business profile. There seems to be a lot of restrictions on tagging people on a business profile. What I have done for my very small business is make a personal page "Sanfords family Page" and from here I friend requested the people that I know are close to the organization, like friends and family, so I can later tag them on "Sanford's Kitchen" the business profile.Also you can tag and write a name in but it will not link to that persons profile... That really does no good for me though since I want to use the interaction with our fans as much as possible.

• Jay Jay Tavares 4 months ago

  

  I thought it was great especially the typo in the (3. Poor Writing section) "social media content tor farming it out" I will still share it.

• Garret Bright 4 months ago

  

  Equating the support of Ron Paul to a "personality crisis" is pretty ***.

• Christine Britton 4 months ago

  

  Actually, I "caught" the typo in Pt #3, also.Received a posting just today on my personal FB page that is applicable:Dear People of the World,I don't mean to sound ***,but please use me whenever you want.Sincerely,Grammar

• Erik Waldorf 4 months ago

  

  I admin. a downtown page and I completely agree with your article. As a "marketer" for the downtown businesses I, in many cases, rely on what other businesses and merchants post. SO many of them do not post or post so infrequently that they have no content for me. What's the point of having a business FB page if you're not going to use it. I'd sure like to understand how to light a fire under them.

• KRISTIN WITTENBERG 4 months ago

  

  Okay, am I the only one who thinks it's funny that there's a typo in point #3 on Poor Writing? "Many businesses cut a corner by writing their own social media content Tor farming it out to an intern with poor grammatical skills.":-)Otherwise, great article!

  • Sanford's Kitchen 4 months ago

    

    That's great! I didn't notice until I read your comment. Sadly point three is directed at people like me.

• Drewry News Network 4 months ago

  

  everything said in this article about sharing content on Facebook makes common sense. Even as an entrepreneur who was running my own business online, I still seek the advice of others in humility, when it comes to effectively conveying messages and distributing content on the World Wide Web. This is by far a very thought-provoking post on "sharing business content on Facebook", because it's creative, educational and insightful articles such as this, that helps entrepreneurs such as myself strive harder to be better in their business practices :-)http://www.drewrynewsnetwork.com/f5/using-facebook-search-engine-optimization-driving-traffic-1818.html