How an Organization Can Use ‘New Facebook’

Cross posted from K Street Cafe.

Surprise! That Facebook fan page you built for your organization has totally changed, and it may have happened right under your nose.

If you’re like many organizations with a Facebook presence, you probably spent a day months (or years) ago carefully crafting your Facebook fan page to look like an institutionally approved multimedia brochure. Your blog’s RSS feed was automatically posting on the side panel; your YouTube videos were displayed handsomely in the center; and the description of your organization’s goals, policy positions and political philosophy were clear and brilliant. Anyone who clicked on your page was greeted with a clean, carefully crafted page.

Perhaps there were a few comments here and there, but not much of a discussion.

You were in control.

Then you woke up one morning last month and found that all your work had been turned upside down.

Facebook decided that it wanted to be “new.”

Now it’s back to the drawing board. Here are a few things you can do to make your page shine again:

The first thing you’ll notice is that your page looks a lot less like a brochure, and more like a discussion forum. Gasp! You’re no longer in control of how your page looks every minute of the day. In one fell swoop, the masses have taken power over the content and the look of your page.

Wisely adopting one of the cardinal rules of social media, (It’s not about you, it’s about them), Facebook made your page a hot bed of discussion and interactivity. While you can still post your policy papers, advocacy alerts, events and blog posts, your audience’s comments are now displayed front and center.

If you haven’t already, start by setting up an RSS feed that will automatically post your content to the page. This will allow a steady flow of content for your fans to digest and discuss. If you have more than one RSS feed, you can combine them all into one feed using Yahoo Pipes.

Now for the best part: The “status update” feature is by far the most effective way to engage your users. Facebook has made it so that this portion is included on your fans’ news feeds alongside their friends’ status updates. Facebook has also made it very easy for people to give feedback and comment on what you post, so this should be one of your most important tools on the new format.

At this time, there is no way to sync status updates with your Twitter feed, but maybe this is for the better. The last thing we need is for our news feeds to be clogged with robot tweets full of hashtags and ‘@’ signs that mean nothing to the Facebook community. So you’ll have to do it manually.

The main thing to keep in mind with the new format is that it craves information. If you don’t have fresh content flowing through your page on a constant basis, it’s going to look dated and dead very fast. Gone are the days when you can neglect your Facebook presence, because first-time visitors will now be greeted with irrelevant information.

Remember, New Facebook is needy, so give it love.

In the end, this is all for the better. It puts your fans in control and allows you to interact with them with a lot more ease. You’ll also be able to gauge your success much easier than before, based upon the amount of comments and “thumbs up” signs you get from people who like what you’ve posted.

So go back to that dusty Facebook page you haven’t touched in a while, and give it a cleaning.

After seeing how much traffic it can bring to your site, you’ll be glad you did.

For a few examples, check out The Heritage Foundation, The Center for American Progress or the Cato Institute. (If you are not a fan of these pages, Facebook will probably take you to the “Boxes” tab. Click on the “Wall” tabs to see how the page looks to fans.)

Starting a Campaign? Give New Media the Scoop

This is my first post at K Street Cafe, a site that offers tips on new media strategies for advocacy groups.

Last week, The Cato Institute placed a full page ad in many major newspapers with a statement that showed there is not full agreement among economists about Obama’s stimulus plan.

But long before the ink was ever set to paper, thousands of people across the country had already seen the ad, and were commenting on it and sharing it with friends online.

By making the ad available to bloggers before it ran in the papers, Cato was able to generate a media buzz long before our main product even existed. Most of all, we gave bloggers the opportunity to scoop old media giants like The New York Times.

Here’s how to do it:

1) Start with well-known allies: When running a campaign, make a list of the bloggers you know are not only going to post your product, but will actively help spread the word.

2) Make your product available in a number of different forms: Not everyone likes a PDF, and not everyone fancies an embed code. Give bloggers the option. Send them the PDF, JPG and the embed code of your product so they can choose how they want to share it.

3) Lead by example: Be sure to post the product on your blog first. How’s it going to look if you’re asking all these bloggers to post something, and you haven’t even posted it yourself?

4) Engage your Twitter community: Be sure only to ask for retweets when necessary. In Cato’s case, we want to make sure people know that if we ask for retweets, it’s something very important.

5) If bloggers help you spread your message, thank them: In the blogosphere, the hyperlink is the highest form of gratitude. At Cato, I try to keep bloggers engaged by linking to them on Cato@Liberty every few days.

6) Follow up: Even if your campaign is nearly over, be sure to take advantage of the opportunity by making personal contact with bloggers who helped you along the way. If they live in the area, treat them like you would a mainstream reporter and take them to lunch. After all, they helped fight for your cause.

7) Create two versions of the product for both old and new media: For example, Cato created a special online version of the ad that bloggers can put on their own site during the stimulus debate. Any blogger can simply copy and paste the code found here by clicking on “Spread the word.”

By taking a few extra steps to engage bloggers, you will keep your campaign alive long after last week’s newspapers are crumpled up and thrown into the recycling bin.