Are Your Facebook Fans Really Loyal?

I was on vacation last week — so I spent a lot of time on Facebook. Most of the time my Facebook usage is focused on 30 minutes here and there throughout the day, but on vacation I had two different Facebook exposures: 1) more time than usual and 2) on my laptop versus just my smartphone. Wow, what a difference.

I learned a lot. First, I got more insight into the brands my Facebook friends are connected with. Second, I got to spend a lot more time looking at how nonprofits and (commercial brands) talk to their fans and "advertise." I found it interesting that there is not really a clear trend or best practice. Granted, I say this from the perspective of the brands I like and the brands of my Facebook friends, but what I realized is that there are multiple strategies deployed relative to content, fundraising, etc. It was just perfect timing for me to see this post from Fast Co. — of course, on Facebook.

This post came toward the end of the week and was a great way to think back over all the various business/nonprofit posts I had seen. There's some great information here, but before you click on the link just know that I am not recommending you follow the Burger King strategy. That's interesting, but unless you have found yourself with a tremendous Facebook following and a lot of your followers are inactive, then I would suggest you just chock that one up to "really unique strategies" and then keep reading to the do's and don'ts.

Here's a summary of what I believe are the most important points and, in some ways, the suggestions I believe nonprofits need to pay the most attention to:

• Respond to comments — both positive and negative. This goes back to the basic concept of listening. Many organizations have a tendency to only handle negative issues. It is important to remember this is about "social networking" and your constituents/fans are also very interested in hearing your thoughts outside of just your posting. I know the article recommends a maximum response time of 24 hours to respond to people's comments and that might be hard for many nonprofits that have lean staffing models, but the key is to make sure you are having a dialogue that is outside of just your posts to everyone.
• Length really matters, and interestingly enough there is a "magic" number according to this article and infographic — 40-character posts have the greatest response and 81 is too much. Apparently 40-character posts received 86 percent higher engagement than others. This is very important. As nonprofits focus on storytelling, it is important to realize that most people want to be able to experience multiple posts during their Facebook visits. The worst thing you can do is take up a lot of their viewing space with long posts and put them in a position to hide you from their news feeds. The length is not the only thing that matters though. There is also a frequency standard. You should not post more than one to four times per week and no more than one to two times per day. Again, your goal is to communicate the right amount — if not, you will lose your impact.