Companies almost invariably fire out their Facebook status updates during the workday. However, research from ExactTarget and CoTweet found that 65% of Facebook users do not log-in during the workday, but rather at night and on weekends. So what does this mean for marketers ? It means that you had better develop a media schedule around your posts that revolves around customers not you.
Like it or not brands are media today. This is especially true on social media sites like Facebook. It's easy to develop a Facebook page that looks nice, the hard part is both developing engaging content to get the discussion going and keeping content fresh to ensure people come back to your page. Just because someone likes your page does not mean that they are getting your updates or coming back on a regular basis. You need to find what peaks their interests and how to get them hooked on becoming part of the community.
When a consumer wants answers and goes to Twitter or Facebook to ask a question they usually expect the answer pretty quickly. Sometimes the answer is from others in the community but frankly it should come from the brand itself. After all isn't that one of the reasons why you have a brand page on social media ?
When setting the strategy for social media interaction for brands it's essential that marketers also set realistic expectations on who is going to answer questions/concerns but, more importantly when. I know several companies that try and monitor their brands social media by rotating the responsibility to employees who can monitor their brand pages from home. Their job is not necessarily to post information it is to answer questions or complaints before the rest of the community members jump on the band wagon.
As brands become media it's more important to develop really good engaging content. No that does not mean sales brochure talk it means creating value for your audience to keep you in their social media page views. It also means that you may have to purchase third party content or hire a good writer (no not a copywriter) to develop content that your audience wants and needs.
Think of it this way..think about the sites that you go to everyday. What if they were only updated maybe once a day or once every couple of days ? Would you still go there everyday ? Probably not. There are a lot of Facebook brand pages that are pretty boring and stagnant when it comes to updates. The better the content the more reason that others within the community will take the ball and run with it resulting in more engagement with your brand page.