Have you ever been enchanted by someone you didn’t like? Probably not. Thus, the starting point of using Facebook fan pages is to personify likability. This means every update, comment, picture, and video must be positive and uplifting—they should be the equivalent of a beaming smile. The pressure is on: you cannot have bad days on Facebook. If you want to wage war or argue with someone, do it privately with messages, e-mail or a phone call, but not in a public place like your Wall.
2. Be trustworthy
People can like someone, but still not trust them. Think of, for example, Hollywood celebrities. At an extreme, you could like Charlie Sheen, but not trust him. The way to gain trustworthiness on Facebook is to accept that the burden is on you to trust others before they trust you. You should think like a baker, not like an eater. Eaters see the world as a zero-sum game: if others have a bigger slice of the pie, then they get a smaller piece. Bakers, on the other hand, make bigger or more pies.
3. Optimize your thumbnails
You may be wondering: what should a business take pictures of? One of the consequences of the picture orientation of Facebook is that a picture the size of a postage stamp is crucial—it has to entice people into clicking to expand it. This means that you need to crop your photos and increase the level of brightness, exposure and contrast. Most of the time, you really don’t need to see people from head to toe, so get closer to your subjects and snap pictures from the chest up. Click to learn more about good portrait photos.
4. Answer every direct message
Speaking of a lot of work, you also need to answer all the direct messages to your account. This has nothing to do with your fan page per se, but it’s an integral part of enchanting people on Facebook. This is the hardest of my recommendations to fulfill because there’s isn’t an e-mail client like Outlook or Mail for Facebook to make responding efficient. I admit that I fail to heed my own recommendation here...
5. ABC: always be commenting
The ideal ratio of peoples’ comments to your responses is one-to-one. The exception is when there are many comments that are generic such as “Nice!” “Cool!” or “Love it!” Each of these doesn’t require a response, but when comments are more individualistic, jump in and comment back. People want to know that you’re reading your Wall and reacting to comments, so the three keys of commenting are: fast (within 24 hours); many (respond to everyone); and often (make commenting core to your Facebook activity). This is a lot of work, but enchanting people is a lot of work—otherwise more people and companies would be enchanting.
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