Facebook Marketing Part 9: Developing Communities

We are reaching the end of Levy’s Facebook Marketing book. In Chapter 9, we learn how to build communities using Facebook.

At last count, Facebook had 400 million active users. If we put that in context, compare it to country populations, Facebook has enough members to make it the third largest country on the planet. It eclipses the population of the United States of America at over 309 million.

Chances are your customers are using Facebook.

Levy takes a high-level overview of community building, but balances that with some practical advice we can use today. After build and launching a Fan Page for your brand, the surefire way to watch it die is by subscribing to the “Field of Dreams” approach to community building. We all know that strategy all too well: “If you build it, they will come.”

NOT SO!

Levy gives us some tips to engage the community and build brand loyalty:

• Ask questions.
• Use RSS
• Provide exclusives

Of course, there are more strategies to build active, vibrant communities than these. For more on building community online, I recommend these three resources:

• Online Community Strategy
• The Online Community Guide
• Community Spark

Using Groups for Community Building

Levy give us ideas for building internal groups using Facebook, making the argument that the social network can be a cost effective alternative to connecting employees for small businesses. For that matter, I would say for any organization. There is a downside for businesses, however. You don’t control the data using Facebook Groups instead of a private community platform, Levy warns. “Heed caution when sharing anything private or proprietary.” Levy also says that Groups are a great tool for focus groups too. I agree.

Almost Endless Community Building Options

From personal, to corporate, to non-profit, even hobbies — Levy leads us to believe there are almost endless community building options with Facebook. I tend to agree with that. Our options are only limited by our imagination and innovation. One point apropos for businesses building community is worth noting.

Great company cultures where employees are engaged and believe in the brand are the secret sauce to community building around a brand. “They’re more likely to want to share interesting projects they’re working on, product releases, or other company news,” Levy writes.

The point he’s making is simple. If you want community building to grow your bottom line, you better foster a culture where employees are empowered, motivated and believe in the brand. Otherwise, apathy will kill any community building effort.

Okay. We’ve come to the end of my review of Levy’s Facebook Marketing. The final two chapter are good reads. Chapter 10 gives us examples of those companies that get it. And Chapter 11 is Levy looking into the crystal ball.

If Levy’s publicist had not sent me the book to review, I would have recommended it to newbie. It’s a good read for the beginner and those who are wading into social media marketing. I think that’s his target market. A note on editing, however. While there are no errors in mechanics, the editor could have tightened up the sentences. There’s a lot of play, which makes for a difficult read at times. But that’s partly my fault. (You’ll probably find flabby sentences here.) Just ‘sayin.’