Social Media Best Practices

What Facebook Says About Common Mistakes

Facebook has become an increasingly important tool for doctors to stay connected with their patients and to reach new circles of potential patients. With so many businesses now using Facebook as part of their marketing strategies, the best practices and common mistakes are becoming better defined.

The Ceatus Social Media staff recently attended a training session hosted by Facebook in San Diego. The course provided data from more than 15 Million business users. Based on a myriad of comprehensive statistics, the instructors outlined the best ways for businesses to take advantage of Facebook, and how to avoid the frequent blunders.

The biggest mistake Facebook business users make is that their posts are too promotional and product oriented. According to their data (and the data of their top business users), the best balance between product information and other posts is 80% versus 20%. Content topics that are social and of interest to the business’ demographic should be the vast majority of the posts (80% or higher), while corporate/product information or promotion should encompass no more than 20%.

The Facebook staff outlined it this way:

“Keep in mind that your business’ posts are interspersed between my purely social (private) posts from my wife, my children, my grandchildren and my friends. If your posts are constantly interrupting my private space with your product promotion, I will start to ignore your posts or worse, turn off your feed.”

The best engagement, and Facebook best practices, occurs when your non-product related posts provide value. Value can take a wide range of forms including posts that elicit a smile, make someone want to share with a friend, provide beneficial information like health tips, share your or your staff’s passion, offer gratitude, etc.

We at Ceatus strive to help our clients pursue the best practices in social media so that they can take advantage of this marketing phenomenon.