A 4-Part Guide to Using Facebook & Twitter - Part 2: Your online presence and information overload

This is a 4-part guide to using Facebook and Twitter for those already running their own online communities on their own sites.

In Part 1 of this guide to using Facebook and Twitter I explained that you should get into the social media scene and have a look around to find out where you need to be, and how information you share can shape your audience's perception of you.  Click here to view Part 1: Getting into the social media scene.

Part 2: Your online presence and information overload

This week I would like to speak specifically about the social media work I do for one online community, and the kinds (and amounts) of information that I post on Facebook and Twitter in order to maintain a healthy online presence and develop meaningful relationships.

I work as a community manager for an organisation which has an online community embedded within their website. Among many other things, I am tasked to grow this community by developing relationships elsewhere online. To do this I need to have a presence among each relevant audience in the social media space. I currently use Facebook and Twitter because that’s where these audiences are.

In fact my immediate, ‘real life’ audience encompasses local organisations here in Bristol, stretching throughout the Southwest, England, the UK, Europe, and on to the rest of the world. In ‘real life’, they’re everywhere – but they’re pretty much all on Facebook and Twitter, and it’s easier for me to reach them there. In other words, Facebook and Twitter are the places where the wider worldwide audience joins together to support each other. They are a very chatty, friendly group of folk who are in need of sharing helpful information with each other. They are real people living real lives and Facebook is the place where they congregate online. They also congregate on Twitter – and though my specific audience isn’t quite as active on Twitter as they are on Facebook there’s enough activity to suggest that I should maintain a presence in this space and develop relationships with these contacts.

On both Facebook and Twitter I am relationship-focused, with the ultimate aim of harvesting these relationships and bringing them back to my client’s website and community. I want to be seen as both a member and a voice within this worldwide audience. I want to be clear that I am working as a paid employee of my client’s own community and that I am also a real person who is passionate about the work I’m doing and cares about the people I connect with.

I also want my audience to see me as a solid and reliable source of good information, and as someone who listens and encourages meaningful discussion. The last thing I want is to clutter their lives with unnecessary and pointless information, and for me this is really key. My audience in particular is inundated with information, much of it conflicting and often controversial. I want to respect them by not adding confusion and clutter to their online lives.

Therefore there are activities I can’t and won’t engage in, and there are activities which work well to help me achieve my aims.

What kinds of information I post on both Facebook and Twitter

• Starting at the first and most basic piece of content – your name – SiftGroups primarily encourages you to use your real name (after all, you are a real person) and I’ve previously written an article about this which you can find here: The naming issue: real name or pseudonym?
• I select a photo of myself that characterises the friendly personality and welcoming attitude I wish to portray. I use the same photo on both my Twitter and Facebook accounts, and this is the same photo that I use in my client’s community. When I update my photo in one place, I will update it in all of them. This gives me a consistent identity.
• I always post useful information in my “status updates”, never feelings or what I am thinking, doing, wearing or eating. OK – sometimes (most often on a Friday) I will reveal a little about my personality by way of a more casual post along these lines. But only rarely. I want people to pay attention to the useful information I’m sharing with them and for people to know that if I’ve posted something, you can count on me to always deliver good content.
• I post a lot of links to articles for my particular topic. How you use Facebook and Twitter will depend on the nature of your work, but for me – I want to be seen as a curator of knowledge on the subject matter at hand, and so I use these spaces as a way to filter good information through to others who are connected to me. I also post links to useful videos and photos, as well as events that I know my contacts will be interested in. Sometimes my contacts ask me to post information on my behalf, and if I’ve reviewed it and it seems like a good idea – I post it for them. And hopefully they will return the favour when I need it.
• I don’t spam my contacts with information from my client’s community. In other words I don’t post information solely related to the organisation I work for – if I did, that would be boring. I post articles from news sources, blogs and other websites of all types.  Linking to information unrelated to your organisation establishes you as a member of the wider audience. It shows your contacts that you recognise that you and your client’s community are but a small part of the wider worldwide audience of people who are interested in that same topic.
• I do post about my client’s community! It’s all about a healthy balance. When the timing is appropriate, I drop in a link to something exciting or relevant which is happening in my community and then I invite my contacts to come participate. Once every month or so I put out a message reminding people (or informing new contacts) of who I am and what my job is, and I invite them to join my community. I never ask people to leave Facebook or Twitter, and I don’t discourage conversations from happening on my Facebook page (for example) in favour of moving the discussion to my client’s community space. In fact it’s quite the opposite – I love posting a link to a hugely fascinating discussion in the client’s community and seeing the conversation unfold in my Facebook comments as opposed to solely in my client’s.
• By thoughtfully pulling out engaging conversations in my client’s community and linking to them on Facebook and Twitter, I don’t need to promote the community using messages such as “Join today to start talking to people just like you!”, and so on, because I’m letting the community speak for itself. I am showing my contacts that there are conversations happening and I’m giving them a direct path to join in wherever and whenever they like. Ultimately my hope is that my Facebook and Twitter contacts will join the community, or that they will tell others about it and encourage them to join because they’ve seen me around online and they know what I’m up to.
• When I post information from or about the community I never post a message saying “From our community…” which links to a summary page on the community site, listing all of the recent discussions or activities for people to browse at will. Instead, I try to remember that people want me to make finding valuable information easy for them – their time is precious. So I choose a discussion that is useful, timely and relevant and invite people to come have a look at this fascinating conversation which is unfolding. I try and make it as easy as possible. (Isn’t that what you want when you log into Facebook or Twitter?)
• I generally try to avoid posting more than 4 or 5 things per day.* I don’t want to over-saturate my audience and I want to respect that they’ve got information coming to them from all directions. At the beginning of the day I review my Google Alerts for hot topics, I take a look at the community and see if there’s something I should share with Facebook and Twitter, and then I plan 4 or 5 things to post that day. I drop them into Outlook at spaced out intervals and then I go post them when I get a reminder. Some community managers will use software designed to put out messages at certain times, automatically. This is great, and I encourage you to try these out and use them. But because I also use these updates as a chance to briefly check in and see what responses I got since the last update, or quickly comment on a few things – it works out better for me to use a more manual process.*Remember that most of your actions on Facebook are automatically broadcast to your contacts so you’ll want to consider reviewing and adjusting your Privacy Settings so as not to inundate people with all of your actions, as well as your status updates (which are probably the more meaningful pieces of information). See Part 1 for more information.
• I don’t plaster the URL of the community across Facebook or Twitter whenever I am commenting or posting something (for example when I post information on the Walls of other contacts, Groups or Fan pages). Some community managers feel the complete opposite – they think that every post you make in a social media space should be accompanied by the URL of your community. I personally feel that if I did this all the time, it might look like I’m more interested in spreading the word about the client’s community than in participating in the communities of others. Sometimes I do share the URL – but not every time. I exercise a healthy balance here.
• I have other community managers on my Facebook and Twitter contact lists, and I keep a healthy eye on them, watching what works and what doesn’t. Some of them post endless amounts of noise/information pertaining solely to their organisation (or sadly, themselves!) and I largely end up ignoring their posts (by way of the “Hide” button on Facebook). Bear this in mind and remember that people may Hide you too if you’re wasting their time!

So how does all of this sound? Can you see where I’m going with all of this? Is the picture starting to become more clear for your own work?

In the final two parts of this guide, I’m going to get into the nitty-gritty. First I’ll take Facebook and give you a detailed breakdown of my daily work there. And then I’ll do the same with Twitter.

Click here to view Part 3: Facebook and a month in the life of a part-time community manager

Click here to view Part 4: Twitter and a month in the life of a part-time community manager