Expert blog piece by Matthew Gain
Head of Digital Communications Australia, Edelman
Advice for Facebook
You know good old Thomas Edison was right when he said genius was 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. The same holds true when trying to get a good idea off the ground; the seed of an idea is great but it’s only the start. It’s all the hard work you put in following your big idea that transforms it into a real plan.
Very rarely – in fact, I can’t think of a single instance – does a big plan come from one person. As such we are creating a series of posts here on the Big Blog designed to help you get your Plan in front of a wider audience online.
Over the coming months we will be looking at how to use the following tools to increase awareness about your plan:
- Starting a blog
Today we’ll look at Facebook.
Facebook
The brilliant thing about Facebook is not that it allows us to see how hot or not our high school girlfriends or boyfriends are (although I must say this is a pretty appealing feature!), but rather that it is our own little media platform.
The average Facebook user has around 150 friends, though the number for many users is much greater than that. Importantly your Facebook friends are people that like you, probably respect you and will likely want to help you out if they can.
As such here are five tips for using Facebook to help you gain a wider audience for your Plan:
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Update your status and include a link back to your Plan
Invite people to check out your plan and provide any advice/assistance they can offer by clicking on a link (if you use a bit.ly link you can even track how many people click on it – which is pretty nifty!).
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Attempt to start a conversation
Facebook has a clever way of prioritising status updates that generate a lot of conversation. You may have noticed this when one of your friends updates their status to announce that they are getting married or are breaking up; relationship status updates typically generate a lot of comments and thus are prioritised by Facebook in the news feed. Think about how you can structure your updates to drive conversation – even a small call to action like “what do you think of my plan” is likely to get the ball rolling.
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Upload pictures
Photos are one of the most clicked items in a user’s news feed so why not upload a few photos that represent your Plan? Be sure to include links back to your Plan in the captions and album description.
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Create a Facebook Page
Facebook Pages are a great way to build a sense of community around your plan. You can read all about Facebook pages here – but basically they are like a profile for a celebrity or non-human entity such as a brand or organisation. Updates you make on your Facebook Page wall will be sent via the news feed to those who have “liked” your page.
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Send direct messages
If there are particular friends that you would like to help you with your Plan, why not send them a DM? People find it difficult to say no to a direct appeal for help, especially if you outline why their brilliance in a certain area is just what your Plan needs. Flattery does indeed get you everywhere!
These are just a few ideas. What other tips can you share? (Notice how I am trying to start a conversation and get you engaged! Clever huh, well not really…)
-Matthew
Who is Matthew Gain?
Matthew is the Head of Digital Communications for Edelman in Australia. In this role he is responsible for leading digital strategy across the agency’s clients and driving social media thinking amongst Edelman staff.
For almost a decade Matthew has led digital campaigns in Australia and internationally for leading consumer brands such as Microsoft, P&G, MasterCard, Xbox, Hyundai and Motorola.
