The other day I wrote about some Facebook page content strategies to consider based on the goal(s) you are looking to accomplish. Today, I wanted to focus on another issue often encountered when managing a Facebook page – regularly updating your Page content.

Automating Your Facebook Page Content

The simplest way to save yourself countless hours in the admin section of your Facebook page is by automating your updates as often as possible. The easiest way to accomplish this is by adding your RSS feed to your Facebook Page. This will regularly take the new content you create and automatically cross-post to Facebook.

Step 1:

Once you’re logged in to your Facebook Page, click ‘Edit Page’ and then select ‘Apps’ from the left-hand menu:

Step 2:

Make sure the ‘Notes’ app is installed, then click ‘Go to App’ underneath the description of the app. You’ll be met with a customized Page for your notes content. You want to look at the bottom of the left-hand sidebar for a small link that says ‘Edit import settings’.

Step 3:

Once “Edit import settings” is selected, you’ll be brought to a page where you can paste in an RSS feed to import. As soon as that’s done, Facebook will start automatically publishing new content from the feed to your Facebook Page. Additionally, if the content has an accompanying image, it will automatically use that image as a thumbnail for the update, meaning that even auto-generated content looks great and can also impact your EdgeRank.

Facebook Page Content Automation Benefits:

Once your RSS feed is updated, it takes zero time to maintain this content channel. That said, your fans will love being able to keep up with new syndicated content which should increase the engagement through increased comments and ‘Liking’ these automatic updates.

For brands, one of the most frustrating aspects of running a Facebook Page is determining exactly what content to syndicate. The answer can be just as frustrating … it depends.  The trick is to publish great custom content alongside automatic updates with the following goals in mind:

Increasing Website Traffic:

When you want an increase in website traffic consider publishing questions about your content or products. Ask for opinions on your content, or recommend a specific product – and make sure every update has a link back to your site. Not only does this bring traffic to your website, but it also heightens the feeling of community on the Page.

Starting a Conversation:

When you want to start a discussion, the best option is to use Facebook’s Questions feature. Start publishing polls and asking for your community’s opinions. Comments are extremely important for the growth of your Page because when a user posts a comment it also shows up in their News Feed to be seen by all their friends. This can impact EdgeRank and expose a larger group to your message.

Build Community Loyalty:

When looking to build loyalty simply interact with fans in the comments. Thank your fans for their support, run promotions or specials and give fan-only gifts and bonuses.

Increasing Sales:

When an increase in sales is the primary goal, post teaser updates about new products, share images of upcoming products in development, progressively share news about new products, and give fans discount coupons.

Capturing New Clients:

If you are in the business of increasing new clients, post examples of newly completed work, share testimonials from existing clients, post information about your services and talk about some of the cool things you might be currently working on.

What tips do you have for creating and building a community on your Facebook Page?

Welcome to the inaugural post of Only Facebook! It seems fitting that we kick off the blog with such breaking news – the Telegraph.co.uk announced earlier today Myspace and Facebook are engaging in talks around sharing content. MySpace’s CEO Owen Van Natta is quoted as saying “we are in talks with Facebook, and other sites, about how we could partner with them.”

The move could potentially see MySpace music and video footage being shared on Facebook via its Connect platform. This would be a huge win for Facebook as Myspace tends to still be the social platform of choice for musicians.

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, told The Telegraph: “Facebook is focussing on building the best technology which helps people share content, while at MySpace they are focussing on more a content-led strategy. We would like to have their content, as we already do with many other sites, shared across our network because it is good for our users.”

What are you thoughts? Is this a good move by Myspace?