building community

Build Your Facebook Community One Post at a Time

building community

I often get questions from folks on regarding tips and best practices for building a successful Facebook community. This is one of those subjects where there is no written code of rules that you can add water and stir and voila you have a thriving community. Each page is unique and therefore each community is unique.

One question that came up on The Training Factor Facebook page was about pictures. Pictures now play a huge role on your Facebook page as a result of the real estate they take up on the top of your page. They definitely need to be part of your overall posting approach. However since they are now a focal point much more thought needs to be given. If you have an apartment community you manage and you want to highlight your residents, they certainly need to be tasteful. If you are concerned about privacy laws, many communities have a clause in their lease that states that in public areas media may be used to highlight the community in social media channels. In order to get the best out of your pictures, you don’t have to post all of them at once from any event. Take it one post at a time. That way you are not overwhelming your Facebook page members with content that they probably won’t have a moment to view all at once. I have noticed some great Facebook pages such as University Village who really have a knack for involving everyone in the community with their pictures. Learning from other businesses is a key to picture success. We decided to use screenshots from our courses on The Training Factor page. On my personal Socius page I used some marketing images that were in my presentations. There are a lot of options out there you just need to plan effectively.

General conversation to me is such a big factor. When I share content it is not simply a link to an article. To me, that is tantamount to handing someone a newspaper and pointing to an article with your lips sealed. Open your mouth and tell people why you havefacebook conversation something to share. Highlight a key sentence you appreciated or something that you plan on applying from the content. You are striking up a conversation. It’s called coffee talk. Once people see that you are conversation tool and a community facilitator then you will start to see progress for your page.

Do not ever feel that you are going to have overnight success when building your Facebook community. It takes a solid consistent effort and it also takes a great deal of planning and testing the waters. If you are struggling to get your page rolling, do not give up. Be focused and just take it one day at a time. If you have any thoughts to add to this discussion please feel free to share them in the comment section below. I would love to hear some tips on how you are making your Facebook page work for you.

Written by Jonathan Saar

 

10 thoughts on “Build Your Facebook Community One Post at a Time”

  1. Great post. I hadn’t thought about the images at the top, not sure why. Duh. 🙂 I have recently started grabbing sentences from my articles and posting them with the articles. It really does help! Now off to go see what images are dancing around on the top of my Fan page 🙂

    Blessings,
    Mel
    Please feel free to stop by: Trailing After God

    1. Thanks Mel. It can be hard to keep up with what Facebook changes all the time. I actually really like the new model. I think it is much more suited for business now. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

    1. Thanks Lisa. The tabs are another great tool. You have to use those little things to show your overall effort is strong. Thanks for chiming in. Have a great Wednesday!

  2. Great post Jonathan and thanks for the mention! I could not agree with you more on your suggestions here. It’s really about being social…being real and just talking with your fans and not at them! Photos are a great opportunity to create a sense of community, pride and let’s not forget FUN. No one wants to be sold on your community page, they want to see you have a personality. So are you showing your community personality and do others “like” it?

    1. Kim your University Village page is such a stellar example of interaction and using photos effectively. Some people have a great fear of using them, but when it is done properly and in the sense of community people do jump on board. I love pages that ooze personality! Thanks for sharing your insights. You are a pro!

  3. Great post Jonathan! You’re absolutely right, it takes time to build, but consistency and variety pay off eventually. We have some communities that are getting great interaction by residents. I love your suggestion of a clause in the lease regarding media usage from public areas. We’ve always used a sign-in sheet at events with a disclaimer, but this is a much simpler method.

    1. Thanks for stopping by Janet. I am glad the tip was helpful. Something I picked up from another company. I have also seen signs at the entrance to an event that have disclaimers on them as well. Paper work can be a pain sometimes. I am so happy to hear your pages are rocking. Once we catch on then it just becomes fun and easy. There are always baby steps though. Thank you so much for adding to the conversation today.

  4. Love this post Jonathan! We just tested out the new question feature on our community page and it’s a huge success! We haven’t had this much activity since the community opened in September. The question was to name our mascot and just a few hours in we had over 20 suggestions, 100 votes and a ton of comments!

    1. I noticed that today and thanks for letting me participate. That is a creative way to get people involved. I will need to keep an eye on that with other communities to see if they are leveraging it in the same way. Thanks for finding my personal blog Angela and thanks for sharing some nice tips for Facebook interaction.

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