My Facebook Page Takeaways from Internet Summit 2011

I’m ramping up some work on Facebook Pages for a couple of clients. Instead of sharing my Internet Summit 2011 notes on the topic in an email just with them, I’ve decided to turn them into a blog post.

With a little luck, I’ll get similar blog posts on my search and analytics takeaways in the next couple of days.

As Matt Peters (@fracked), co-founder and creative director of Pandemic Labs, put it so eloquently, “NO ONE IS VISITING YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE!” You can have hundreds of people like your page, but you should know that, on average, less than 5% of them ever return.

Your Facebook Page is not a destination, as Matt explained. It is an important place from which you pump out content, but that content needs to be written with the goal of appearing in fans’ news feeds. The goal of getting them to “like” it or preferably “share” it with their friends. It’s golden content if inspires your fans to respond to it. “Engagement” (as we folks in the industry like to call inspiring people to respond and talk about what you post) is what you want.

Matt provided some excellent food for thought and provided some great examples on what qualifies as an excellent Facebook Page post. For your Facebook Page content to be successful, it should require:

• minimal attention
• minimal cognitive resources and
• high emotional value.

Lisa Braziel (@lisabraziel), strategy director at Ignite Social Media, and Jim Tobin (@jtobin), president of Ignite Social Media, both referenced Facebook’s EdgeRank Algorithm in their social media presentations. Folks who work on the web know it and build content around it every day. Small business owners toying with the idea of a Facebook Page should know that it is the magic formula for determining whether your post appears on your fans’ (or friends’) newsfeeds. Every Facebook post is measured according to it and the three magic dimensions are affinity (engagement and interaction), weight and recency.

Matt Crenshaw (@mcrenshawATL), vice president of marketing and analytics for Discovery Digital Media, Discovery Communications, gave an interesting presentation that covered his company’s analysis of their Facebook Page postings, their fans’ comments and how Discovery Communications adjusted their Facebook Page activity as a result. Another part of their extensive analysis was a tactic that any small business can and should adopt. A few questions that I think are excellent starting points – and points to revisit every so often as you create and manage your Facebook Page content.  Determine:  “What is my competition posting? What is working for them? What isn’t working for them?”

If you made it to the Internet Summit this year, what were your favorite Facebook Page takeaways? For you or for your clients?