The most common blunder is event spamming—flooding users’ inboxes with event invitations and updates. Although it’s safe to assume that people on your list share your interests, that doesn’t mean they appreciate being sent ten Facebook reminders a day. Use your own preferences as a guide—take a product or service you like, and make an honest estimate of how often you want to receive their emails. For a relatively savvy user, a few times a week is usually acceptable. Of course, there’s also some market research involved; you want to know what your users’ lifestyles are and where daily emails fit into the typical schedule.

You also want to avoid putting people on multiple friend lists. Friend lists eliminate the need to click on one hundred names at a time, but it’s hard to control users. Many of them unknowingly put themselves in two lists that send them the same stuff, and this can be construed as spam—even if it’s not your fault. It’s good business practice to correct such slip-ups. Once in a while, verify your lists and weed out any duplicates.

Perhaps the most important thing in using Facebook Events is relevance—and that’s something even the most experienced professionals miss out on. It’s tempting to create an event for everything that happens in your company, as it shows up on the feeds of everyone who’s invited. But it can easily go the wrong way when you start posting every single update as an event. As a rule, create events only for actual events, such as a product launch or sale, that takes place somewhere your users are familiar with and where there’s a purpose to confirming their attendance (e.g. freebies for people who actually show up).

Facebook Events no doubt have their place in marketing, but like any other tool, they’re only as good as the people behind them. Use it to better target your message and reach more people with less effort, but back it up with market research—and put at least an equal amount of work in crafting good content that will keep people coming.

Facebook’s fast-paced nature means that you don’t approach your writing the same way as you would a blog. Keeping it short and sweet is always a good rule, but when your audience is continuously scrolling, you also need to get their attention and warrant a second look. The first rule to Facebook writing is to weave in eye-catching words. Traditional writers may warn against loud adjectives and unusual words, but on Facebook, these are your main attention-getters. You shouldn’t pepper your writing with them, but they should be there to catch readers’ eyes.

Another rule that sets Facebook apart is the margin for opinion. Expressing your own opinion on a business platform is traditionally discouraged, but social media gives you a lot more leeway. In fact, opinion posts are the most effective way to generate conversation on Facebook. You don’t want to come on too strong, but you want people to feel that you trust them with your thoughts. If you’re not sure how to go about it, do it the other way around: elicit people’s opinions on a relevant issue, encourage exchange, and participate in it as needed.

The tag feature is a simple yet powerful networking tool. By letting people know when you’re talking about them, you’re inviting them into the conversation and eliciting even more meaningful exchange. You can do this with your fans, or even with similar businesses. The latter is a great way to network, especially if you’re new to the business and want to get noticed. Keep providing good content and you’ll find yourself tagged as well—and therefore getting more traffic.

Finally, you want to maintain an intimate, personal tone throughout your Facebook page. This doesn’t mean talking about yourself, but getting rid of the corporate façade and taking on the role of a friend. You can involve employees in posting, talk about company operations, and even discuss unrelated topics from time to time. It takes some getting used to especially if you’ve worked with traditional marketing for a while, but over time your writing becomes less forced and much more effective!

So what kinds of content work best? It depends on your audience: some people respond well to photos and videos, others might prefer links to interesting articles that they can discuss with community members. Others don’t have time to read anything longer than two lines, so simple updates may be best for them. Here are some ways you can populate your Facebook feed and what they can do.

External feeds: If you have an existing blog or Twitter account, it’s simple enough to set up a feed that cross-posts your material from Twitter or your blog platform onto Facebook. The option is available as an app on your Facebook admin page. One thing to remember, though, is that this can easily flood your readers’ pages and cause them to opt out of your news feed. This is especially true for Twitter. If you post dozens of times a day, you may want to just pick the most popular ones and link to them manually on your page.

Links: Get a feel of what your audience is interested in, other than your product or service. Use this information to share material that might spark conversations. Do you have a blog on green living? Try posting a link to an article on new environmental legislations or a radical new product. This not only helps build a community around your page, but also sends the message that you’re really interested in your topic and value your readers’ input.

Social interaction: On days where you don’t have much to say—and even on days when you do—you should maintain a presence in other Facebook pages. You can Like a reader’s post or photo, comment on an interesting (and relevant) update, or share something that someone else has posted, making sure to give them due credit. Every time you do this, an update shows up on the user’s page and links back to yours, giving you more traffic. It also gives you a more approachable image and strengthens the feeling of community you have with your readers.

Much of the publicity you will get from your Facebook page might actually come from outside Facebook. The most likely source is your own website, where you can link people to your Facebook page for easy updates and commenting. The Like box, which you’ve probably seen in other websites, is a great way to generate traffic without interfering with the flow and design of your website. The beauty of it is that people don’t have to open a separate tab to like you on Facebook; the button’s right there and they’re even automatically signed in.

A similar feature, the Like button, allows people to like individual posts in addition to the entire website. This is especially useful for blogs or sites that follow a similar format with frequent updates. As mentioned earlier, you can have the button read Like or Recommend, depending on the level of formality you’re going for—the wording doesn’t change the function. Don’t think of these two as mutually exclusive; you can have the Like box and the Like button at the same time, provided they don’t clutter up your page.

You’ll also want to bring traffic to specific pages on your website, such as those that contain important updates or links to contest information. One way to do this is through the Activity Feed, another page feature you can add to your site. Here, users can see what other people (usually those in their network) have liked or commented on. This creates inbound links to popular pages, increasing internal traffic to your site and driving up your rankings.

Most of these features rest on users being logged in, or able to log in, when they decide to like, comment, or take some other sort of action. In most cases their computers will log them in automatically, as mentioned above. Otherwise, you’ll want to add a Login button in an intuitive place, such as the top of your sidebar. Remember, people have short attention spans online, and you want to make it as easy as possible for them to like you!

Your first image

A profile picture would be a logical place to start. Unlike individual users, you’ll probably want to stick to one picture instead of changing it around, except when really necessary. Your choice of picture should therefore adequately represent you and be something your fans can associate with. Logos, or at least an image showing a logo, would be appropriate for businesses and organizations. Websites and freelancers can also use logos if they have one; otherwise, a picture of the creator or the person himself is usually appropriate. For physical products, you can use a picture showing the product itself, either on its own or in use.

Adding information

Next, you want to fill in some information about your page. The “Edit Information” page will show different options depending on your classification. If you have over 25 fans, you’ll also be able to pick a user name. None of the fields are mandatory, but some are highly recommended for credibility. For brick-and-mortar businesses, these are usually those that have to do with location, including city/town, zip code, and address. URLs and author names are important for blogs, websites, and freelancers. Don’t feel obligated to fill in every field; too much text will clutter your page and make important information less prominent.

Words and photos

Finally, you’re ready to add content—something you’ll be doing regularly once you’ve got a steady flow of fans. It’s always good to have a buffer of ideas so you don’t go long periods without updating. Text works well for everyday updates, but if you’re making an announcement for an event or sale, it’s usually best to add in a picture so it draws more attention. You can also link to relevant articles or websites, or post albums for events and new products.

As we’ve mentioned, your content will probably take up the most of your time and effort. Every time you post something, you want to make sure it’s relevant to the page—although it’s okay to talk about random topics, you still want to have a coherent theme going on. Once in a while, take time to browse through your page and see if you’re on the right track.

Classifying yourself

When you click on Create a Page, you’ll be met with six icons, each one representing a different type of page. This is simply a way for Facebook to classify your page so that people know what you are. Your options are Local Business or Place (for businesses with a physical address), Brand or Product (for well-known brands, online businesses, and freelancers), Company, Organization, or Institution (usually for larger service-providing firms or non-profit organizations), Artist, Band, or Public Figure (if you’re a group or individual promoting yourself), Entertainment (if it’s a page for some other artist or performer, like a fan page), and Cause or Community (for groups of fans or supporters of a particular cause).

Picking a name

If you’re a fairly active Facebook user, you’ve probably come across pages with entire sentences for titles, or even entire paragraphs. This is a classic mistake. You want your name to be short and sweet for several reasons. First, shorter names are punchier and therefore more memorable. Second, although you can say more in a longer name, people don’t usually bother reading the whole thing, so your message will likely be lost. Lastly, it’s annoying for readers when a page with a 60-word name takes up half the screen on their newsfeed.

Once you’ve picked your name, make sure of two things: 1) you can live with it for good, and 2) there are no typos. The name becomes unchangeable when you reach 100 fans, and you don’t want to be stuck with something you don’t like or that’s just plain wrong.

Don’t publicize it—yet

It’s tempting to like your own page or get friends and family to like it, just for the thrill of seeing the numbers go up. But this will cause your page to show up on their news feeds and drive traffic to your bare, uninteresting page—and drive away people who might have stayed otherwise. Before making things public, make sure there’s enough content and design to make it interesting!

Getting the button

Facebooks’s Like Button page gives you a detailed view of what it does and how you can incorporate it into your website. You can choose between iFrame and XBFML, but most people choose the latter version because it’s more straightforward and doesn’t require a whole lot of expertise. It also creates an intuitive platform for users to leave comments on the page, so they don’t have to sign in every time. You can also choose aesthetic aspects such as size, color scheme, width, depth, and layout. It then generates a code for your page, which works by identifying which page or post a user is viewing, and automating the Like process.

Like vs. Recommend

This is largely the company’s call, as the two buttons do the exact same thing. Some things to consider, however, are the level of formality you’re trying to create and your readership. Casual, lighthearted articles may work well with a Like button. The Recommend option is more suited to serious news pieces or commentaries. Your choice is universal, i.e. you can’t change from one to the other, so it’s important that you understand your website’s overall tone.

The Like Box

The little box on a blog’s sidebar with a grid of profile pictures is called the Like Box. It shows readers who have liked your website on Facebook, and gives them an easy way to do the same. Perhaps more importantly, it first shows the people in their network who have liked the page (if any), adding a peer element to get them to click. It’s a great complement to the Like button code because it allows people to like your entire page in addition to your content. As with the button, you can get it by generating the code from the Facebook website and filling in your own preferences.

It works on anything. At first, one could only like status updates or uploaded media. Today, one can like comments, news feed items, and even entire pages. This gives companies the flexibility to choose their medium without worrying about lack of response channels. It’s especially useful to get Facebook Page likes as it paints a more holistic picture of your readership than likes on specific content.

Likes promote themselves. It’s been pointed out that when users click the Like button, it sets off a quiet but powerful chain of other events. It shows up in their News Feed, which makes you visible to people in their social network. The number of people who liked the content in return will show up on the page, and the more you have, the more curious people get. And that’s important because it’s all about getting people to take a second look.

It engages people. Once people Like your page, they get to read all of your posts and stay up to date on your company’s activities—just like they do with their friends. It’s a great way to invite people to events, spread related causes, or send word out about new products and services. In other words, it gives you a powerful presence in their lives even as you take care of other business matters.

You can go outside of Facebook. Facebook has integrated itself into third-party websites—that’s why you see your Facebook profile picture on comment forms on many news items. In other words, people don’t even have to be on Facebook itself to use that mode of interaction. If you run a blog, a corporate website, or even just a landing page, installing Facebook features opens it up to interaction and turns it into a community of thoughts and ideas—and that’s often what sets you apart from the competition.

Facebook is a different story. Although it had already been around during the Twitter boom, it took time for marketers to recognize its potential. It doesn’t help that it went from platform to platform before finally making itself as friendly to businesses as it was to individuals. The feature that made the difference was Facebook Pages. With its launch and the continuous growth of Facebook accounts, it quickly became the front-line marketing tool for businesses. But why is it so effective? More importantly, why should you invest time and money in a Facebook Page when your marketing plan looks solid enough?

One thing that makes Facebook different is intimacy. Facebook Page updates appear on people’s news feeds, alongside messages from their friends and family. This kind of closeness implies that your brand is part of your readers’ lives. Few other marketing approaches, if any, allow you to break away from the “big business” image and become a friendly, accessible resource.

Facebook also combines a large readership—over 600 million, more than half of whom are active—with a system that commands people’s full attention. In other words, when people use Facebook, they’re focused on it, whether writing status updates, reading other people’s, or looking at photos or videos. Most other social media platforms, notably Twitter, are made to run in the background. And that points us to another distinct advantage: while Twitter users are largely tech-savvy and have on-the-go lifestyles, Facebook is accessible to even those with limited technical know-how.

There’s also better quality discourse in a Facebook post than a Twitter update. It’s not just because the 140-character limit is removed, but also because comments are easier to read and respond to. It’s therefore more effective at making users feel like part of a community.

Last but not least, there’s the ubiquitous Facebook Like. It’s a small icon and a single mouse click, but it packs more power than a Twitter follow for several reasons. The most obvious is that it’s public, so it spreads across every new fan’s social network and pretty much self-multiplies. Likes aren’t everything, but it’s a good start—and combined with the growing range of Facebook marketing features, it’s set to change the face of marketing, if it hasn’t already.

Most people choose online degrees for the convenience it offers: you can work at your own pace, whether you want to take it slow or take on more work to get your credits faster. You also have convenient access to books, journals, and other resources, as most schools will give you regular student access to their libraries. Professors in online courses are usually trained to manage deadlines and to respond quickly to student queries, so you don’t have to worry about correspondence.

Online degrees usually work on a virtual classroom platform, where teachers can upload reading material and resources, post information and deadlines, and students can submit their work and view their grades. Often, there’s a forum where you can ask questions about the course content and share your ideas with other students. Today’s online classrooms are designed to imitate the interactional aspects of a physical class, and many have come quite close.

The advantage of this setup is that you can work in your free time. It’s an ideal arrangement for people who want to study while they work full-time, or parents who don’t have time to leave home and attend classes. If this is your situation, make sure to find online programs that can be done completely online, as you may sometimes have to show up in person for exams or to turn in large projects. Or if you don’t mind occasional in-person meetings, find a place that you can plan to go to every few weeks.

The workload in an online degree is usually the same as its offline counterpart, so getting the degree isn’t actually easier online—it’s just more convenient. It takes a good deal of discipline to perform well in an online school, especially as most online environments now follow the same standards as any other university program. If you’re not sure you’re up for the challenge, start by taking one or two courses, then decide if you’re ready to do it full-time.