7 ways to win friends and influence others on Facebook

One of my favorite books is “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. It recently occurred to me that a lot of what he writes in the book applies to interactions on Facebook.

Facebook is having a tremendous impact on many of the top brands in the the world. For example, Starbucks is one of the top brands on Facebook because it recognizes and rewards its consumers.

Here are seven ways you can help your brand or client win friends and influence others on Facebook.

1. Arouse in the other person an eager want.

Figure out what the customer really wants from your Facebook page. Why are they coming to your Facebook page and why do they ‘like’ it? Is it because of conversation? Engagement with fans of similar interests? Discounts? Special offers? To benchmark other top brands for ideas, check out the Facebook page leaderboard on the PageData section of InsideFacebook.com. According to the site, Texas Hold’em Poker is number one. It is interesting to note that since Facebook changed its language from ‘fan’ to ‘like’, the entertainment brands have seen an increase, according to ClickZ.

2. Become genuinely interested in other people.

Contribute relevant content on your wall (and if you have a discussion tab) to stimulate conversation. Make sure that each person who ‘likes’ your Facebook page knows that the brand cares about them in a genuine way. Your Facebook page should be generating conversation among your loyal fans not spamming them with marketing messages that are irrelevant to them.

3. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.

Update content consistently and ask a lot of questions. Asking questions is a sure way of getting them to talk about themselves. But it is important to make sure that when you ask these questions that you listen so that you can ask better questions the next time. While the number of people who ‘like’ your Facebook page is important, those who actively engage with you is even more important for your brand. To learn more about how to engage your fans, check out these two great Mashable articles: four ways to increase Facebook fan engagement and five inspiring case studies for Facebook fan pages.

4. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.

Why do people want to become a fan of your page? Why do they like your content? Learn what interests your target audience has beyond just the interactions with your brand. Conducting research is important to really getting to know all of the interests of your brand advocates. Throughout all of your social media platforms, you can get a bigger picture of what really interests your audience.

5. Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.

It is important that you generate new fans and keep your current fans happy. To keep them happy, recognize the people who create or share the most information about your brand. For example, create a loyalty rewards card where your fan collect points or badges or stars. Something where you encourage your fans to keep coming back for more and more. Highlight on your Facebook page, stories that represent your “ideal fan.” Perhaps develop a “fan of the day” or “fan of the week” on your page where you continually make your fans feel like they are an important part of everything you do as a brand. For more information, check out: how to recognize and reward your brand’s top fans.

6. Give honest and sincere appreciation.

In social media, it is important that you give sincere appreciation. A simple “thank you” needs to go deeper. You need to give them something of value such as free ticket, a coupon, exclusive access, gift certificate or a momento. Something creative to show them that you really appreciate them and are thankful that they are a brand advocate.

7. Throw down a challenge.

Create a contest. Be creative. For example, you can create a user-generated content contest about why they are your biggest fan. Or you can create a contest where they take a video or photo about using your product or service. Or create a contest with a large prize such as a trip, cash or meeting your brand celebrity. Check out these posts: leveraging social media for contest promotion and five tips for creating a successful social media contest.

For more information on how to win friends and influence others on Facebook, check out these other five resources.

1. InsideFacebook
2. Mashable
3. AllFacebook
4. Facebook Blog
5. Facebook Developers

Show your constituents some love

By Matt Lindsay

We’ve been featuring Alumni Valentines in our GW Colonial Cable alumni e-newsletter for three years running. I typically have some trouble finding couples to profile, but this year was different.

We leveraged social networks and asked couples whose relationship began at GW to share their stories. I posted a message to our GW Alumni LinkedIn Group and on Twitter (@GWAlumni) and watched the messages rolled in.

We received 25+ stories, more than enough for our e-newsletter, and enough to spill over into a “More Alumni Valentines” story next month. The story received two to three times as many click-throughs as our traditional feature story in our e-newsletter.

On this Valentine’s Day I encourage you to show your constituents some love by engaging them across your social networks to help you tell more interesting stories.

Know Your Audience

We try to segment our social media outlets and target our messages accordingly. Here is how we focus our communications on each of the GW Alumni social networks (recognizing there is some audience overlap):

LinkedIn– Build awareness of career services, opportunities, and news, encourage peer connections, find story ideas, and open conversation through “discussions”

Twitter – Quick hits to build prestige around the university and its alumni (top news and prominent alumni), support relationships, and find story ideas

Facebook – Promote events, share regional-specific information, encourage peer connections

YouTube – Share highlights from alumni and university events, build awareness of leadership in the university and alumni association

Flickr – Repository for event photos, maintain engagement

Social media is by its nature not about simply pushing information out, but learning about your constituents needs and engaging them in dialogue. GW graduate and social media consultant Steve Goldner recommends bringing an “LCR mentality” to your social media outreach – Listen, Conversation, Relationships.

One powerful way to encourage conversations and build relationships is by soliciting advice and feedback from your audience on story ideas. In this case, the quality of our engagement through social media is just as important as the quantity.

Recognize Your Reach…and Limitations

For most organizations, social media provides another platform to reach a certain segment of your audience. Our largest GW Alumni social network – LinkedIn, with 10,430 members – only represents about 5% of our alumni population.

According to research by Forrester (see Josh Bernoff’s post on Social Technographics) 17 percent of U.S. online adults are “inactive” on social networks and the largest percentage group are simply “spectators” who read, listen and watch, but do not take an active role in a conversation.

It is important to use a variety of communication platforms in your outreach. For our Alumni Valentines feature I solicited names of couples during in-person conversations, through e-mails, and on social networks. The story was e-mailed out through our e-newsletter, featured on our website, and posted on our Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook pages. The piece included a call to action for others to share their Alumni Valentine stories, which allows us to build off the original story.

Create Winning Content Through Collaboration

Some people are more interesting in 140 characters than others. Some videos on YouTube become viral hits and others flounder. Some individuals on LinkedIn spark thought-provoking discussions, while others come off as completely self-promotional. And some stories in your e-newsletter receive more click-throughs than others.

Creating content that resonates remains crucial. Develop content with input from your constituents on a variety of social networks and share that content across several different platforms. You will engage more individuals, hear more ideas, and produce a better end product.

How have you seen success by engaging your social networks in developing content?

This post is courtesy of guest blogger Matt Lindsay (@lindsam8). Matt is the director of alumni communications at The George Washington University (GW) in Washington, D.C.