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How can I ensure my Facebook community remains open to my messaging?

By now you’ve heard all about Facebook’s recent woes with the revelation that data from 50 million Americans was allegedly misused by Cambridge Analytica, a “full-service propaganda machine”, to design messaging to influence public perception and affect voter behavior. We’ve all joked about how Facebook is watching us, Alexa is always listening, Google is our overlord and the AI uprising to overthrow human civilization is nigh.

via GIPHY

But all jokes aside, trust in Facebook has eroded. With the #deletefacebook movement going strong, what does this mean for #eventprofs who are leveraging the benefits of Facebook marketing for their events? How do we ensure our Facebook community feels safe, respected, and open to our messaging?

73% of Canadians said they would change their Facebook habits in light of this fiasco. (click to tweet) 

Here are a few guiding principals to help navigate a digital marketing environment low on trust.

Community Guidelines are your Lodestar

Ensure strict Facebook community guidelines on your social media channels and groups. You want to discourage spammers and nefarious influences that detract from the integrity of your community.

Add your Facebook community guidelines to your page description or pin a post to make them obvious and accessible to your community. Include actions that are encouraged and actions that are discouraged, and moderate your groups and pages to ensure adherence to the guidelines.

Transparency Builds Prosperity

Zig Ziglar, one of the greatest marketers of our time, stated: “if people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”

The greatest social currency is trust. Having an open-door policy will build your trust equity by providing your Facebook community with insight into your operations. Here are some ways you can cultivate a culture of transparency (via Inc):

  1. Establish core values
  2. Don’t make selling the goal
  3. Be an open book
  4. Respond in a timely manner to consumer’s questions and issues
  5. Stay open to other’s opinions
  6. Make your social media pages a community
  7. Include suggestions for areas of improvement

Be a Human Being

In an era of suspicion and distrust, the only way to get through to people is showing that you are human. One way to achieve this on your social media channels is ensuring you have a robust community management system in place. Assign someone knowledgeable about the community and your brand voice to act as the facilitator.

You’ll want to ensure you engage with your community members in a human-2-human way, that you always reply to their comments, and even help ease engagement and networking between members. If you establish your channel as a multi-directional dialogue, you will find people will return for more.

#deletefacebook and GDPR

The current Facebook fiasco is deepening the discussion around the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which takes effect on May 25th.

We will be covering all your GDPR questions in an upcoming issue.

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Article by Justin Mulfati

Justin Mulfati

Justin is passionate about bridging the gap between art and business, and is constantly on the lookout for great event marketing content to share with the sensov/ community.

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