35 EXPERTS ON THE

BEATTITUDESOF FACEBOOK INFLUENCE

BEFRIENDED

I asked friends how they create influence on Facebook...

In the “real world,” a person might have power and

influence through their position on an organizational chart

or through some elected position. But on the Internet, we

HATE rules. We HATE structure. And we sure don’t need

any org chart.

And yet, people do become influential on the Internet don’t

they? I’ve written quite a bit about the special opportunity

we all have to create influence through our content. But

beyond content, I was interested to know what people

thought it took to gain influence on the social web. So I

asked a few of my friends, “What do you think it takes to

become powerful on Facebook?”

I think you’ll enjoy their answers.

– Mark Schaefer

BEUSEFUL

Go ahead, be useful:

JAY BAER, President, Convince & Convert

”Be a Youtility. Facebook forces companies and people to

compete for attention pixel-by-pixel. That’s unprecedented.

You can have all the cute cats and cool photos you want, but

ultimately usefulness and relevancy are the keys to success.”

RANDY GAGE, Author, Risky Is the New Safe

“Influence comes from value – creating a Facebook

community that brings value to the people who participate

there.”

IAN CLEARY, CEO, RazorSocial

“Creating influence on Facebook involves identifying your

niche and building a personal and meaningful relationship

with existing influencers, helping them grow their influence

and not expecting anything in return.”

JASON FALLS, CEO, Social Media Explorer

“Be consistently useful. Isn’t that the key to influence

anywhere?”

BEVISUAL

Help others see it:

C. C. CHAPMAN, Author, Amazing Things Will Happen:

“Share visual items that instantly create an emotional response

from the viewer so that they feel compelled to like, comment

or share immediately.”

KERRY GORGONE, Course Director, Internet Marketing at Full

Sail University: “Include a photo with every post or, better yet,

several. One study indicated that posts with multiple photos

increased engagement 1290%!”

BERNADETTE JIWA of Striking Truths: “I think one of the

things that’s overlooked about FB is that you don’t have to

have a huge presence there yourself to drive ‘traffic’ back to

your blog. We create outstanding visual images that people

like to share on Facebook, driving traffic back to our own

website.”

BEGENEROUS

Share generously:

DJ WALDOW, Founder and CEO, Waldow Social:

“In order to create power and influence, it’s imperative to speak

like a human, to be helpful, and to

share knowledge with others.”

LIZ STRAUSS, Founder and Owner, SOBCon,

Successful-Blog.com: “Help other people be visible and valued.

When you find something great and valuable, don’t just “like”

what you see. Tell the people who made it why you like it and pass

it on. Share great work and help the people who created it grow.

Do that often and with pleasure. You’ll attract generous, powerful

people who value great work.”

BILLY MITCHELL, President, MLT Creative: “If anyone you’d like

to do business with takes a second to like you (and your business)

on Facebook, don’t blow it. Annoy your new friends with hype

and you’re history.”

MARGIE CLAYMAN, Director, Client Development, Clayman Ad-

vertising: “Instead of worrying about creating content, prioritize

sharing and commenting on the content others create.”

JENNIFER KANE, Principal, Kane Consulting: “Proactively and

strategically build your network, and then lavish those people

with attention and empathy so that each one feels like the star of

their online life — which seems to naturally compel people to

want to make you the star of yours, in return.”

BEGENUINE

Genuinely like it? Share it:

SHELLY KRAMER, Founder, CEO, V3 Integrated Marketing:

“Just. Be. Human. And to me, being human means being a trusted

resource, as well as being interesting, funny, compassionate,

interested in others, supportive, informative, helpful, apprecia-

tive, etc. You get my drift. And this is where so many people go

wrong. They try do something different online than they do in

person. But the brands, large and small,

who are successfully using

Facebook to connect with

their customers are doing

just this. They are

being human.”

SHONALI BURKE, VP, Digital Media and Marketing, MSL:

“If you know who you’re talking to, you’ll know how likely they

are to respond when you ask them for/to do something. So get

to know your audience; if it worked for Edward Bernays, it’ll

work for you.”

STEVE FARNSWORTH, The @Steveology Blog: “Have a distinct,

candid, and thoughtful opinion/point of view, and be transparent

on your reasoning for it. However, if you’re presented with new

information that changes that opinion, openly admit your new

position and why you changed it.”

SEAN MCGINNIS, Founder, 312 Digital: “Treat Facebook as a

channel where you conduct thousands of one-on-one conversa-

tions. Real influence is built one person at a time.”

GLEN GILMORE, Principal, Gilmore Business Network: “Sow

influence on Facebook the same way you would in “real life”:

show that you care, that you can be trusted, that you listen and

share – and that you are a leader both in what you say and do.”

BESURPRISING

Surprise your followers:

MARISA PEACOCK, Chief Strategist, The Strategic Peacock: “In

order to create power and influence on Facebook, it’s essential to

provide fans with an experience that they can’t get from any other

company touchpoint — not from your website, or Twitter, or

Pinterest. A successful FB page creates a value-added bonus that

gives fans a reason to stay connected and engaged.”

BILL STRAWDERMAN, “The Marketing Bard” and Executive

Director, AT&T Digital Marketing and Social Media:

“Serve at the pleasure of friends,

Inspired by what your care lends.

In the kitchen of minds,

Your ideas further bind

The weak ties – which grow strong

in the end.”

ELIZABETH SOSNOW, Managing Director, Bliss Integrated

Communication: “To gain influence on Facebook, create an

emotional narrative arc that can be broken down into daily mini-

stories. Structure your stories so they satisfy at least one of these

four filters: surprise, humor, excitement and inspiration.”

JESSICA NORTHEY, Digital Host and Strategist,

FingerCandyMedia.com: “No matter what you think, YOU will

not be relevant and/or liked by EVERYBODY so shoot straight

from the hip, get to know and learn about YOUR audience, find

out what is important to THEM and never ever ever be boring.”

JAYME SOULATI, PR and Marketing Strategist: “Facebook

requires filters to target the audience with whom you want to

engage. Much like LinkedIn groups, creating specialized

communities, or better yet, joining them, provides more power-

ful relationship building with those who have the same/similar

objective. Use those groups to show authority and balance that

with smart questions, too. ”

JON BUSCALL, Communications Consultant, Jontus Media:

“Surprise your audience with something different. Familiarity can

breed contempt.”

BECONSISTENT

Share consistently, too:

NAVEEN KRISHNAMURTHY, CEO, RIVA Solutions, Inc:

“The key to creating power and influence on Facebook is to have

a consistent message over a longer period of time that is infec-

tious to the targeted community.

Thus the audience wants to

move past window

shopping and

open the

door and

come in!”

LEO WIDRICH, Co-Founder, Buffer: “There is one key thing we

have seen from our data analyzing 1 million Facebook updates:

Whenever the frequency of daily postings goes over 5 posts per

day, the reach and engagement drops significantly. The best

results were achieved with two daily updates, one being around

11am for the most important timezone your fans are in and an-

other posting being at 5pm.

NATE RIGGS, of Social Business Strategies: “Lots of bigger compa-

nies who are building and managing fan pages stop responding

after 5 pm. This is dumb. To create real influence on Facebook,

community managers need to be present when the fans are ready

to talk. Influence is created when you can solve a problem or

answer a question when it happens.”

GREGORY POUY, European blogger and digital strategist: “Focus

on one subject/community that is relevant to your company and

create and give useful content for these people, respecting their

own code, meeting them in real life as often as possible and taking

time, not expecting a short term financial ROI.”

KATHI KRUSE, Automotive SM Marketing consultant, Kruse

Control: “Know what your customer wants and give it to ‘em.”

BETHOUGHTFUL

Sharing is thoughtful:

MITCH JOEL, President, Twist Image, Blogger, Podcaster, Author,

Six Pixels of Separation: “Lets keep this short and succinct:

instead of getting people to “like” you, why not go out and “like”

people? It’s radical I know, but it’s true. Power and influence

won’t come from the amount of people who like you. Power and

influence will come from being real with the people you’re truly

interested in connecting with.”

MICHAEL A. STELZNER, CEO and Founder, Social Media Exam-

iner: “If you want to have raving fans on Facebook, simply reply

when they post on your Facebook

wall. You’d be surprised how far

human response goes in

building brand loyalty.”

TOM WEBSTER, Vice President, Strategy, Edison Research: “Ask

your Facebook followers what kinds of content they expect/need

to see from your company (or your industry) in the future on

Facebook, reward them for answering, and then do that thing.”

ROBERT ROSE, Strategist in Residence, Content Marketing

Institute: “In my work with brands on both the B2C and B2B

side, ‘active listening’ is one of the keys to success on Facebook.

Too many brands treat the platform as a publishing platform.

And, it’s not just monitor/response. That, frankly, is just ‘hear-

ing’. Active listening is consciously hearing, understanding and

responding in a way that communicates to the person that they

are actually being heard.”

GINI DIETRICH, Founder and CEO, Arment Dietrich: “Ask

questions! People LOVE to talk about themselves so if you

ask them questions, you’ll find some serious engagement. The

questions can range from ‘what’s your favorite Thanksgiving side

dish’ to fill-in-the blank questions. For instance, on our page, we

recently asked, ‘The most overlooked marketing tactic is…’ and

‘What was the best thing that happened to you this weekend?’

While not everything we ask is business related it definitely keeps

us top-of-mind with our clients, prospects, and candidates.”

BEIN TOUCH

Be in touch with your world:

Presented by

SCHAEFER MARKETING SOLUTIONS

Social media and marketing strategy, management and training

(workshops, speaking and one-to-one consulting).

Email Mark Schaefer

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Creative on Call, Inc.

Email Chuck Kent