Facebook for Business

I’ve been skeptical about using Facebook for business. I’ve always thought it creeperish (as my teenage daughters would say) when former colleagues who I don’t know on a personal basis friend me. But I recently encountered a Facebook page that changed my mind.

Over the past few months, one of my daughters has been performing in a musical at a community theatre in Raleigh (www.raleighlittletheatre.org). As she moved from rehearsals into the actual performance, I became mesmerized with their Facebook page. The crew that creates this page has a great understanding of how to use Facebook in a business setting. 

The following are four observations of why Facebook works as a vehicle for promoting the theatre.

1. Facebook communicates quickly and effectively with many audiences at once. These include:  

• Actors—In the 2010-2011 season, the theatre will put on 11 plays including adult and youth theatre. Directors are constantly recruiting actors to audition for these plays. The more actors it can bring in, the more choice they have in casting. They use Facebook to encourage actors to audition by publicizing the auditions and by creating a feeling of community among people who have performed in productions, making it more likely they'll try out for new productions.
• Parents—With five youth performances a year, the theatre relies on an army of parents of actors who must transport their kids to the theatre and provide volunteer labor to help with the shows. Constant updates keep parents informed of everything that‘s going on regarding a particular show.
• Patrons—The theatre clearly needs to get people in to see the shows. Facebook publicizes shows throughout their run and lets people know if shows are selling out to create a sense of urgency. Behind-the-scenes views of the show help create excitement and interest.
• Volunteers—With a skeleton crew of paid staff, the theatre relies on an army of volunteers to build and strike sets and perform other technical tasks for each and every show. The staff pleads for additional workers on Facebook. In addition, all of the publicity and insider information about the shows helps keep volunteers engaged. 
• Sponsors—A number of local companies sponsor the theatre and its productions. They want to know that their money is well spent. Constant updates serve this purpose.

2. To maintain a steady stream of patrons coming to see the show and to develop a feeling of community among the many volunteers, the theatre uses Facebook for ongoing communications. Types of communications include:

• Behind-the-scenes views—The theatre works hard to give people a behind-the-scenes look at shows so people want to come see or volunteer for the shows. These include links to photos and videos of rehearsals or interesting facts about a show's history. Actors will talk about getting ready for opening night. When one of the directors was hospitalized, they posted a brief updates on his progress on Facebook.
• Promotions—During the run of a show, the theatre posts regular promotions. Whenever the local press publishes an article or runs a story on local television, a copy is posted on Facebook. Often, the theatre will do brief promotional events at local venues such as at a local bookstore and children’s museum; they’ll publicize the event beforehand and post photos of it afterward.   
• Announcements—Facebook will announce auditions, call backs and cast lists for upcoming shows. These are of interest not only for the cast themselves, but for people who may know the cast members. Facebook is also used to announce new shows, new classes, even the latest version of the newsletter.  
• Community comments—In some cases, people within the community post comments—whether it’s a volunteer about to take cast photos, an actor about to go to the theatre in their pajamas, or a friend of an actor going to see the show. This certainly creates a feeling of engagement with the productions.

3. By creating continual communications with all of these different constituents, the theatre helps build a relationship with the local community.   

4. The theatre tightly integrates its Facebook page with many other forms of marketing communications.

• Website—The Website lists all shows and upcoming classes, a history of the theatre, past award winners, information about shows from previous seasons, and much more. It also displays prominent links to the theatre’s newsletter, Facebook page and Twitter.
• Twitter—The theatre tweets announcements and news of interest.
• Newsletter—The theatre also produces a newsletter that publishes announcements about upcoming shows and promotions, volunteer opportunities and auditions.
• Email Listserv—The theatre also has a listserv that publishes pleas for volunteers.

While the theatre duplicates much information in these various venues, different people want to receive information in different ways. The theatre uses multiple avenues to communicate with people where they want to receive information.   

While I’ve been skeptical about using Facebook for business, this theatre page demonstrates one way that Facebook can be used in a business setting in a personalized, yet professional manner. Many of these ideas can be directly applied to many other types of organizations.

How does your organization use Facebook?

Comments

[Bhas]

Facebook is gold for B2C and for non profits and for cases like the one that you mentioned here. Very often the initial contact on FB is enough to make people take a favorable view of the brand and get on board.

However I don't think FB is the place for B2B. I would be happy to be proven wrong but I think that FB is quite low in the totem pole of marketing channels when it comes to the B2B sector.

Having a FB presence is equivalent to having a pretty front office- you have a good impression of the company but you won't be buying an accounting system because they have comfortable couches and potted plants