So What Can Or Can’t I Post On A Facebook Fanpage And Who Says So?

I recently did a synopsis of Chris Farrel’s webinar on Facebook marketing. It really opened my eyes up to the possibilites of using Facebook as a tool to generate traffic to my blog posts, websites and videos. You can read the post here.

Chris, talked about the 50/50 rule. Nice little rule. Basically he suggests spending 50% of your time on your own pages adding content and another 50% commenting on other people’s pages and creating relationships. He said whatever you do do not just post your direct link on other people’s fanpages as this is a serious breach of Facebook etiquette.

I started to experiment with this technique. After loading my new Facebook fanpage with relevant content I began searching for the most popular fanpages in my niche. I stuck with the internet marketing world and developped quite a nice list of liked pages. I started making relevant comments, reading posts, responding to questions and of course never putting my link anywhere. (The exception, of course, is the link that Facebook automatically includes back to your fanpage.)

I then thought I would try to find pages with much larger audiences. I began surfing the pages of Clickbank, YouTube, even Martha Stewart. There are fanpages out there with hundreds of thousands of fans. The largest fanpages in the internet marketing world are at about 16,000 fans.

I noticed something else. The culture of each page is different. Some have plenty of people sharing their links, others openly say in the description of their page that they want you to post their videos right on their page. So who makes these Facebook etiquette rules anyway? Facebook is only a few years old really so there has not been much time for tradition to set in!

The owners of the Facebook fanpages determine the rules for each page and the culture of the page. And the cultures vary widely. I discovered that there are plenty of pages where my direct links are welcome and even encouraged. And here is the good news, most of these pages have huge fan bases.

I began posting links to some of my relevant articles on pages which seemed to encourage this type of activity and leaving comments alone on pages did not. Was I flamed? No actually I received likes and even direct comments on my blog.

Here are 2 YouTube related Facebook fanpages where they openly encourage you to post your videos and promote your YouTube channel:
https://www.facebook.com/YouTubePage– Over 36,000 fans. Here is what they say in the description of the channel: “This is the PERFECT place where you can promote your videos and channels to get more views, comments and subscribers for FREE. We ? to share videos.”
https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-love-YouTube/98329051786– Over 150,000 fans!

So the moral of the story is that you must check out the culture of the individual page you want to post on. There are plenty of pages where they welcome your relevant content. And there are others where they have strict no link post policies. I find that I get more leeway outside the internet marketing world. Also, I find there is quite a bit of fluff on internet marketing blogs. We IM bloggers have to come up with new material all the time and it is very hard to thoroughly test all the techniques that we discuss. I am seeing more “philosophical” type posts on IM blogs and fanpages. You know what I mean post like “How To Find Your True Blogging Voice And Inner Peace Blah, Blah, etc. etc.” Sorry I am a bit of a guruphobe. Just give me the facts Mam.

For me the essential ingredient is the quality of the content. For example, I wrote a decent article about self-publishing your ebooks. I included many resources where you could publish your ebooks that many people might not have thought of. I posted a link to this article on several fanpages where they specialize in discussing self-publishing. Yes, I published a link on somebody else’s fanpage but it was informative, and on topic. The reactions so far have been positive.

So what is better a page with a strict no link policy filled with comments like “Nice one!”,”I’ll have to check that one out”,”LOL!” or some links to well written, well thought out articles on the subject at hand? My vote is for the quality content.

The great thing about commenting and posting content on other people’s page is that is brings completely new visitors to your web properties. I have found posting on other people’s Facebook fanpages to be not only a good traffic generator but an educational experience. Give it a shot and let me know what you think.

Thank you for your valuable attention,

Matthew Meyer