Angelique Robbertse, JobMail

So you've finally decided to embrace social media and create a Facebook page for your company – but how can you run it successfully?

Firstly, companies should think of their Facebook page as a valuable communication channel and be prepared to give it the same level of attention as any other form of communication that they use such as email telephone etc.

The next important thing is that companies must ensure their target audience know about their Facebook page, as it will be of no use having a ‘nice’ Facebook page and no one knows about it. For example, companies can start this by getting all their employees or customers to “Like” and share the page with their Facebook friends, and ensure the Facebook link is present on all forms of communications from the company.

Also, companies should put emphasis on frequent and consistent activity on the page. One good way to achieve this is to have a designated member of staff to manage the Facebook page, whose job would be to update the page with relevant content, respond to requests and queries, and most importantly,
keep the conversation alive. This will also bring about an opportunity for companies to learn about what people are saying about their products or services, detect grievances customers might have, and therefore be able to rectify them accordingly.

Companies should also remember that- there’s nothing more off-putting to customers than being bombarded with promotional messages, so companies should be mindful of this and keep promotional messages about their products to a minimum.

Finally, companies should ensure that most of what they post on their Facebook page is always paired with an image or video. Images and pictures often attract more attention from and interaction with the users. Remember a picture tells a thousand words.

About the author: Angelique Robbertse, product and marketing manager, JobMail