It is a little surprising that Facebook fan pages (and the people who administer them) don’t take greater advantage of the tools available for sending updates. While you can always post messages, links, videos and other content to a page’s wall, you also have the ability to send targeted updates to your fan’s inbox.
How to send an update to your fans
The link to the “send update to fans” tool has moved recently into the “edit this page” section of your Facebook fan page. Access to this screen is only available for Facebook fan page administrators.
Once you have entered the edit this page section, look to the right side of your screen to find the “Promote this page” box.
Click on “Send update to fans”
Targeting your updates
Now that you know how to send an update, the next question you should ask is what type of update should you send? If you have a large fan base, you might consider using some of the targeting tools available to you.
Updates can be targeted a number of ways – either by location, age or sex.
There are several advantages for targeting your updates. Lets say that your a retailer and want to test promotions by market. You may decide to send an update to your fans in Phoenix, Arizona a special discount code, or provide a link to your web site that has special URL tracking.
Of course, you might also just want to tailor your message to your audience. You might decide that your particular product would be better suited to females, or to people over the age of 21.
How often should you send updates to fans?
This one is a little more subjective, because it really depends on how often you have something you need to communicate.
Something that has worked for me has been to examine your Facebook page analytics and look for unsubscribed or removed fans. Unsubscribed fans are those who have hidden your updates, while removed fans have essentially removed themselves from your page entirely.
Much of this is trial and error, but over time you will get a good gauge of how often you should be communicating with your fans based up these numbers. If you update too often, you may notice a spike in the numbers of removed or subscribed fans.
What makes a good update?
As you have learned, Facebook updates give you a chance to reach a more specific, targeted audience. What else are updates good for though? Use the send update to fan function to send messages to your customers which are more detailed than what you’d normally see in a wall update.
The Desert Botanical Garden uses Facebook updates to let their fans know about special events that are upcoming. Attached to the update is the actual event listing, which allows me to RSVP in one easy step.
On the other hand, consider the next page update, this one sent to me from the band Silversun Pickups.
Basically, a list of a bunch of tour stops and sale times for cities I have no interest in (and don’t live in). This would have been a great opportunity for the band to send me just information about Arizona stops on their tour (or perhaps even southwest stops), include a link to the site where I could buy a ticket, or even a video from the band inviting me out to the show (a generic video, obviously).
The send update to fans function can be incredibly powerful when done to the right audiences, with a targeted message. If you administer a page you should really be using this tool!