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7 Steps to Save a Neglected Facebook Fan Page

  • 9/23/2011
  • Jon Gunnells, Social Media Planner
Image 7 Steps to Save a Neglected Facebook Fan Page

Reviving a neglected fan page takes more than posting a few status updates saying “we’re back!” Follow these seven steps to revive it and reengage with your audience.

Photo above by kevinspencer. CC-BY-2.0

Do you have a business or a client who has forgotten about their Facebook fan pages? We did.

Starting in the spring of 2010, a CE client had stopped interacting on their Facebook pages. But fans continued to visit the social hub to receive information, advice and to talk with other brand enthusiasts.

By the spring of 2011 fans had asked enough questions and led enough engagement to warrant a revival. The CE Social Media Group was tasked with re-launching the once-forgotten pages.

The success of the re-launch could be felt almost immediately after the new status updates were posted. More comments and likes were received on the first posts on each page than had been seen in the entire month before.

Still, reviving the three neglected pages wasn’t as easy as posting status updates that said, “Did you miss me?”

To ensure that the re-introduction of the pages were as successful as possible, the CE Social Media Group followed these steps. Many of these tips will apply to forgotten pages, new pages, or existing pages with consistent brand-led interaction.

  1. Monitor user-engagement – Before you know what to talk about you need to know what the fans are talking about, or more importantly, what they want to hear about.
  2. Analyze the demographics – See where your fans are coming from, and when they like to post. Indentifying trends will help you connect with them easily when you are ready.
  3. Clean up spam posts and photos – There’s no more obvious sign that a fan page is dead than a Facebook wall full of posts about how you can make $5,678 dollars per week working at home. Go back through old posts and hide spam links, photos and videos.
  4. Update information tab and links – During the dead period did the company’s URL or phone number change? Don’t forget to fix them in the info section along with the company overview and other key sections.
  5. Develop a content calendar – Use your insights from monitoring the user engagement and demographics to plot out what you are going to say and how and when you are going to say it.
  6. Thank the fan base for sticking around – They had more loyalty than the company for hanging around when they didn’t have to. Thank them in the first status update for sharing stories, links and updates.
  7. Stick to your plan – Monitor and analyze your user data identify new trends so you can develop better content calendars. Continue to lead engagement and keep the page free of spam. Most importantly, don’t neglect your fans again – they may not be so receptive if you forget them a second time.

If you are lucky, such as the CE Social Media Group was with their efforts, you may even see a traffic spike and fan page growth.

Do you have any other suggestions for how to save a neglected fan page, Twitter account or other social media page? Post them in the comments below.