The following guest post is written by Phillip Dodd, currently enrolled in Facebook Intensive Program training workshop. What you read below are some of his key takeaways from our training session titled “Creating Great Facebook Fan Pages” by Dave Kerpen of Likeable Media.

Phillip is also a social media manager and can be reached on Twitter @phillipdodd or through LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/phillipdodd

Dave Kerpen, the author of Likeable and CEO of LikeableMedia, delivered an excellent Facebook training presentation today for the third session of Instant E-Training’s Facebook Intensive Program. The topic was “Creating Great Facebook Pages”, and much was discussed about optimizing pages and their content to deliver the best results. Among the points discussed, the one that stood out most to me was this:

Be authentic.

Actor Vin Diesel along with his 21 million fans were used as an example of brand authenticity. It was pointed out that he has was not the most famous, talented, or best-looking actor in the world, but he still is the most-liked. Why? Because he is authentic, “sharing family, videos, and inner thoughts.” (Source: http://mashable.com/2011/05/10/facebook-marketing-strategies/)

The reason that social media is now being considered as a real and legitimate marketing option by large players in the world of marketing is because the old-school methods of outbound marketing through billboards, radio spots, television commercials, etc. are beginning to lose their hold on customer’s limited attention. If the tools of marketing have changed, then why should we operate them with the same mentality as we used with the old tools?

Don’t view your target audience as unknown and foreign objects that exist only to collect in the form of “Likes”! Each one of them is a real person with real feelings and real problems just like you are. They take the time to create their profile and painstakingly fill it with their likes and interests because each piece of information is something dear to them that they want to share. These Facebook profiles of people in your target audience are not automatically generated blips of code without faces or feeling, and neither should your engagement with them if you want to have a relationship with them.

Food for thought and discussion:

1. Where is the line between being “authentic” and being “unprofessional” or “inappropriate”?
2. Consider your current Facebook Page: would you personally “Like” it if you were a customer?
3. Consider the last five things you’ve posted to your Facebook Page: would you personally have interacted with them if you were a customer?
4. Try to write a story about your business. If you can’t, then why should you expect anyone else to?

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