The other night, my dad called me to ask for my opinion on a crucial social media question: to Facebook Page or not to Facebook Page. You see, a year ago, my aunt started a raw dairy creamery on our farm in Vermont, and now that things are really picking up, my dad was wondering if establishing a web presence might be a smart idea (right now, new customers come only via word of mouth and CSAs).

“Of course!,” I told him. “Of course GammelGarten should have a web presence. In fact, it should have at least two—a website for evergreen information, and a Facebook page for daily updates and fan interaction.”

The way I see it, a Facebook page is  where a business can loosen its tie, kick off its loafers and host an informal shindig with no guest list. It’s a place for conversations, not broadcasts, and for questions and opinions, not press releases. And it is, or should be, the amusement park to Twitter’s slide—a place where visitors can enjoy multiple activities over a longer stretch of time and leave with a teddy bear and a fried-dough high.

This is hardly a revolutionary thought—and yet, a tour through the Facebook Pages of 5 of the biggest tech organizations reveals it’s also not yet a ubiquitous one. While some organizations consistently engage and give back to their communities, others let spam proliferate and tabs go unused. Below, 5 snapshots.

1)     WordPress

Fans:251k

Pros:

• Fans comment on wall posts
• Very active but somewhat spammy reviews section
• Nice video tutorials

Cons:

• Wall posts are 2x/month at best and are press releases
• There is no discussion board or other area for the business to interact with the consumer
• All five likes are related to or part of wordpress
• All 8 photos are wordpress logos
• Only one event
• Sparse info section
• no landing tabs
• Fans and non-fans see same information

2)     Microsoft SharePoint

Fans: 21k

Pros:

• Open wall with daily or more updates from the company and fans
• Emphasizes community through Amabassadors tab and wall posts. Amabassadors are expert SharePoint users Microsoft enlisted to get people excited about the product
• Large variety of photos including events, brochurues, infographs, cartoons…
• Variety of instructional videos
• Live chat tab where anyone can ask an expert SharePointer a question
• Likes outside companies like Forbes and SAP TechEd

Cons:

• Events tab is blank
• Notes haven’t been updated since december
• No apps
• Only like 4 outside organizations

 

3)     Intelhttp://www.facebook.com/Intel

Fans: 503k

Pros:

• Welcome landing tab has graphic links to a “Penguins of Madagascar” cobranding video, worldwide locations, products, jobs, deals, and twitter
• Visual life tab lets users share videos and pictures and win prizes
• Deals tab provides a dynamic list of offers and giveaways, with buttons to visit the deal, like, comment and share it
• Products tab is mostly visual with direct links to intel sites
• Large variety of photos, including brochure, events, user-submitted
• The Chase tab includes the full film and a game
• Large variety of videos
• Can watch, share you watched and invite other users to watch intel’s livestream at CES2011
• Notes are frequently updated and personal
• User-submitted notes are frequently posted and given own sub-tab
• Moderation guidelines gives visitors a good overview of requested behavior

Cons:

• Likegate doesn’t have clear value proposition (“stay connected”)
• Deals links aren’t all updated (some go to expired links)
• Jobs tab is blank
• The user-submitted photos aren’t organized or categorized
• Videos aren’t organized or categorized
• Events tab is blank, and past events hasn’t been updated since 2/18
• Links tab is full of spam
• Polls tab is blank
• Second livestream tab is blank
• Having test tabs is confusing
• Only likes Intel branches

4)     Intuit

 

Fans:13697

Pros:

• Likegate not only tells non-fans what they’ll get by becoming fans–it also throws a semi-transperant blue wall over the offers, so that visitors can tell there’s something there but can’t see what it is
• Exclusives tab incorporates a contest, product news, a (clickable) blog feed and a list of free products targeted at small business
• Wall posts are varied, fun and non-PR (majority come from the blog), with plenty of comments and likes
• Support tab includes links to company and community support
• Varied likes include SXSW and FoodTrailers Austin as well as company’s own products
• Photo ribbon showcases personal photos of intuit users

Cons:

• Questions tab takes forever to load
• No videos or other multimedia
• No place other than the wall on which to conduct discussions

 

5)    SAP

Fans: 66k

Pros:

• Welcome tab highlights a video showing CEO of Pepsi endorsing SAPPHIRE NOW and the ASUG Annual Conference
• Other two welcome tab videos explain the product and provide a case study. All videos have good audio and the two promo ones have kicky visuals.
• Wall posts include blog exerpts, polls, questions and news, and recieve alot of comments and likes. All fans can post.
• Jobs tab provides graphic links to SAP’s career page, linkedin, twitter, and community
• Variety of event photos, project photos and user-submitted photos
• SAP Community tab provides graphical links to segmented communities, twitter, youtube, flickr and linkedin
• Discussions are active

Cons:

• Info tab is the landing tab
• Likegate has no value proposition
• Welcome tab is confusing–main point is to get users to register for SAPPHIRENOW, but unless they watch the video below, there’s no explanation
• Questions tab takes forever to load
• Events tab only has one event in it
• likes are almost all SAP products

Agree? Disagree? Have a page you’d like me to look at? Let me know in the comments!

Related posts: