YOU know how it works here at Turquoise Tiger… you ask and we do our best to deliver!

Well, we’ve had lots of fine folks asking us for Facebook advice for some time – everything from how big your cover images need to be to how to resposition wall pictures and how to keep your important statuses at the top of the page.

So, we’ve rolled everything you’ve been asking us into one simple, downloadable infograph. We reckon it answers all your questions and more. In fact, we’d say it’s a vitally important piece of reference material.

Here it is. If you like it, please share it and leave us a comment on our blog.

Happy Facebooking!

Tiger Taz

FACEBOOK is making more changes to its feeds and, yet again, messing about with pages.

This time, Facebook is creating a new Pages Feed with updates from all the pages we like, completely separate to our News Feed. It’s being rolled out now, so if you don’t already have it, you should see it soon. And if you don’t spot it straight away, look again… Facebook’s helpfully making it hard to find by burying it deep down under ‘Pages’ on the left hand column, rather than placing it next to News Feed.

Facebook explains it this way: “Your News Feed is the place where you’re going to be able to find the most engaging content. The Pages Feed is for all the other interesting content you might want to read from pages that you like or subscribe to.”

How can Facebook possibly assume that updates from our Facebook friends are more engaging than updates from pages we like? It’s very new, so the jury’s out, but there are already big, fat, glaring issues as far as this tiger’s concerned!

All pages aren’t created equal

The thing is, all pages aren’t created equal. Some are information portals, some are charities, some are organisations trying to share their expertise and advice with an audience eager to learn and some are big businesses, with lots of cash to play with, who don’t quite understand the ‘SOCIAL’ in ‘social media’ and pump their very commercial pages full of sales messages.

Maybe I’m being far too simplistic, but I don’t believe Facebook’s latest tweak will do anything other than create an ‘us and them’ divide between personal feeds and pages.

Many of those pages are actually more of an ‘us’ than a ‘them’! We want updates from pages we like to appear in our News Feeds; we don’t want the charities and smaller organisations to have to fork out cash they can ill afford to “promote” their information with us, and we don’t want them to be stuck in a Pages Feed we have to find somewhere else.

It’s been harder and harder to gain interaction on pages since Facebook’s last interference; updates have been appearing less and less in people’s News Feeds (unless they’re paid for!) and I’m not sure creating a separate Pages Feed will help.

Improvements?

Maybe I’m being cynical, but if the previous wave of changes was genuinely devised to create a more pleasurable Facebook experience, page owners wouldn’t have to pay to “promote” their posts, would they?.

Although I do agree that the big boys who want to bombard us with sales messages SHOULD pay for advertising (or just push off, because we don’t want to see that on social media, thank you), I don’t believe ANYONE should pay for providing interesting, engaging, fun content, or be pushed out of the News Feed.

Come on Facebook, be fair and give us simple choices! One newsfeed – for pages we like AND people we like – with ALL the updates; it should be up to us to choose what we like and where we see it, not Facebook!

• What do you think? Is Facebook getting too big for its boots? Will people vote with their feet and sink all their efforts into LinkedIn, G+ and Twitter? Have Facebook’s page changes affected your engagement? Please do share this blog and leave us a comment!

IN the Tiger den there’s no such word as failure. That’s not to say that there aren’t disappointments when things don’t go as well as we would like.

Every business experience, good and bad, is a learning curve, but only if we choose to step back, take the emotion out of it and evaluate with a rational head on our shoulders.

And yes, we know that’s easier said than done sometimes!
When you run your own business those knock backs are inevitable. It’s part of the ‘joys’ of running your own business.

Perhaps a regular client has cut back or frozen their spend with you or you didn’t win that important pitch you put so much time and energy into.

But how do you respond to these testing moments? Do you dust yourself down, take a deep breath and move swiftly on to the next challenge, after a brief evaluation of the experience?

Or do you dwell on the disappointment and wallow a little (or a lot!), allowing this experience to knock your confidence and plans for the future?

Feedback
To run a truly successful business you need bouncebackability – the ability to respond positively to a knock back. Also remember that every day’s a school day… if you don’t win that contract, or someone doesn’t buy into your business idea, don’t be afraid to ask for some feedback on your pitch/presentation. There’s no such thing as negative feedback; there’s just feedback, and you can ALWAYS learn from it and use that information to be more successful in the future.
Bouncebackability is vital to your success.

If you don’t believe us, take a look around at some of today’s business ‘gurus’. Even the Richard Bransons of this world have experienced ‘failures’. Do they sit and focus on it at the expense of business growth. Do they hell? They learn and move on, eager to pounce on the next opportunity.

These testing times are the moments that make or break a business.
Your bouncebackability needs to be a well oiled machine. There’s no time for sentiment. Yes, give yourself the space to feel the disappointment for a short while but don’t dwell on it.

Believe
Look at what you have learned from the experience and use these lessons to fine tune your approach for the next opportunity that comes your way.

And these opportunities will come, even in a recession.

Believe in your business, believe in your offering and believe that you can bounce back, even through the disappointments along the way.
So, don’t despair, work on your bouncebackability and give you and your business the very best chance to succeed. Your future depends on it.

> What do you think? Do you have tips or bouncebackability experiences to share? Leave us a comment… we’d love to hear from you!

We’ve had a few people asking about ‘negative feedback’ on Facebook lately so, being the helpful cats that we are, we decided to explain all in a blog.

The golden rule, as spelled out in large, friendly letters on the cover of the Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, is DON’T PANIC.

Seriously, don’t. You can’t please all of the people all of the time, and Facebook’s negative feedback is nowhere near as horrible as it sounds.

Here’s how it works…

If you go to your page and click on ‘insights’, you’ll be able to see a breakdown of your page posts, look at which were most popular, which had the most viral attention, and lots of other juicy details to help you fine tune your content.

Now, if you click on ‘engaged users’, then click on the number corresponding to a post in that column, Facebook will show you a little pie chart detailing numbers of clicks, stories created etc. At the bottom of that pop-up, you might find that someone has given ‘negative feedback’.

What does that mean? Quite simply, it means someone decided to hide your post from their page, reported it as spam or chose to hide all stories from your organisation.

It sounds pretty awful, doesn’t it? Someone must be really upset with you to go to all that trouble, right? Not necessarily so…

Think about every time you’ve signed up to a newsletter / company update in your time on this earth, then decided you’ve got too much going on in your inbox and marked them as spam, just to get them out of the way. I bet you have, haven’t you? It’s a bit naughty, and results in a black mark for the newsletter creator, but most of us have done it at some time. It’s not too dissimilar with Facebook updates. Sometimes, people are simply trying to clean up their newsfeed and your organisation’s posts get caught in the crossfire.

What you really need to watch is how many people are creating ‘negative feedback’ in comparison to ‘positive feedback’. Look at the example we’ve given here: one person gave negative feedback, but look at the amount of views, clicks and generated stories… the good easily outweighs the bad, doesn’t it? If there’s no real pattern to be found, and the negative reactions are few and far between, you probably don’t need to worry.

Time to tweak?

Of course, if you’re continually seeing negative feedback in your Facebook insights, it’s time to take action. Spend some time looking at the content attracting the negativity and work towards amending your updates accordingly. Check to see if it’s a particular topic people don’t like, a particular product, or maybe just your choice of language; if you can find a pattern, you can usually do something about it. Experiment by tweaking your topics, content and language and monitor the results closely…  before long, you should be able to build a happy, positive Facebook community.

• Have you suffered from negative feedback on your Facebook page? Have you marked updates as spam or hidden them from your page? Do share your comments here…. we’d love to get some feedback from you. And if you think this blog might be helpful to people you know, please, please share it.*purr*

It’s over. After years of planning, London 2012 said goodbye to the world in spectacular style on Sunday night.

For 16 days we have laughed, cried, cheered and Mexican waved every step of the way with Team GB, whether at the Olympic venues or watching from our armchairs.

I’ve lost count of the number of goosebump moments experienced, the incredible sense of pride felt when watching our athletes compete on the world stage, seeing the beautiful venues in all their splendour and looking at the medal table to find us third, yes third, behind the giants that are the US and China.

Finally, finally we can take pride in waving our union flags. It’s okay to wear your national pride, and wear it we have – hats, underwear, deely boppers, Team GB t-shirts, scarves, sweatshirts, shoes…. The list goes on.

And we’ve given ourselves permission to shout about it. Not for political reasons, but for the love of a nation, its incredible Olympians and all the wonderful things about this nation and the people who live here.

It’s more than okay to be quirky, ‘different’, to laugh at ourselves, to show solidarity, to shed a collective tear, to be British and to wear your Britishness on your sleeve.

Danny Boyle’s Isle of Wonders opening ceremony showcased that beautifully with just the right mix of splendour, humour and storytelling. Something that will be talked about for many years to come.

Then came the reason for all this celebration: the sport.

Inspiration

So many incredible achievements, human stories that have moved and inspired us.

Who can forget the moment when judo competitor Gemma Gibbons looked skyward and mouthed ‘love you mum’ when she won through to her final, eventually going on to win silver?

What about the agony of rowing pair Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter who apologised for winning silver after a dramatic restart, even though their commitment and achievement was never in doubt, or the relief and tears that came when Jessica Ennis finally won the ultimate athletics prize in front of her ecstatic home crowd.

The past two and a bit weeks have brought a nation together at a time when I was beginning to despair for its lack of togetherness and perceived intolerance.

To see people from so many different parts of the country, from such varied backgrounds standing alongside one another shouting and singing at the top of their voices – a human sea of red, white and blue – in the Olympic Stadium is something I will never forget.

The volunteers on the Olympic Park epitomise all that’s been good about London 2012 for me.

So many smiles for the visitors, lots of laughter and singing over the megaphones as people from across the globe arrived and left the park. Never has it been such a pleasure to queue and it’s all down to this amazing army of volunteers in their purple and red uniforms – a credit to the country and the spirit of the Olympic movement.

Feelgood factor

But how do we harness all this good feeling, this positivity and togetherness? Now, there’s a question.

Monday felt like the day after your holiday. You know, when you trawl through the mountain of waiting post and discover unpaid bills or unpack your case and stare at the never ending pile of dirty washing to be tackled.

Back to reality with a bump. Outside of our Team GB Olympic bubble the BBC round-the-clock coverage has stopped, laundry and bills await. Normal life resumes. There are no gold medals for housework and getting to work on time.

Can we honour the fantastic memories this incredible Olympics has given us by doing our utmost to remain positive, by not allowing cynicism and mistrust to replace our rediscovered optimism, tolerance and positivity?

We’ve shown on the biggest stage of all why we are GREAT Britain – not because of some misguided nod to the days of ‘empire’ – but because we are a nation of creative, diverse, funny, talented, quirky, tolerant, compassionate, people and that’s something to be proud of 365 days of the year, every year, not just for 16 days, once in a lifetime.

We’re all part of Team GB. Let’s remember that.

• What do you think? What did your business learn from the Olympics? How will you hold onto that positive vibe? Please share and leave us a comment… we’d love to hear your thoughts.

Heather Stanning and Helen Glover have just won Team GB’s first gold medal at London 2012, becoming the first British women rowers to win an Olympic title. Bradley Wiggins has become GB’s greatest ever Olympian after taking gold in the cycling time trial. And boy, does it feel good!

The Union Jacks are waving proudly as many of us around the UK celebrate these amazing achievements. What a day! But just think about all the months, the years that led up to this. These British Olympians didn’t just get in a boat or on a bicycle a couple of months ago, have a few practice runs and then row or cycle to glory. Their win was only possible after hours and hours of disciplined, dedicated training, perfecting their technique, testing out what does and doesn’t work for them, looking at the strengths and weaknesses of their opposition and adjusting their game plan accordingly.

Guess what? It’s the same when it comes to promoting your business…

Discipline, dedication and a great game plan

It’s no good just writing a press release in isolation and expecting the world’s media to pick up your story straight away. Unless you’ve just beaten Michael Phelps’ Olympic swimming medal haul, it’s highly unlikely you’ll strike lucky first time. To succeed you’ll need to employ a whole host of attention grabbing marketing devices to help spread your message over time and this is something that a marketing specialist can steer you in the right direction with.

Three easy steps to marketing gold

Use our Turquoise Tiger checklist. Keep these questions at the forefront of your mind when considering your marketing and you’ll be in a gold medal winning position.

1) Who is your key audience?

It may sound really simple, but you’d be surprised at the number of businesses who have either not fully identified their audience/s, or who have failed to spot a change in their audience/s over time. This is absolutely crucial to marketing success. If you don’t know who you’re targeting, how on earth can you put together the right message that appeals to these audiences?

2) Where does your audience ‘hang out’?

Are these people to be found on social media, will they be reading national or regional press, specialist business magazines, getting involved in online forums, members of particular groups, clubs or associations? If so, think about how you can reach them with your marketing messages. This will help you pinpoint relevant media to be targeted as part of your marketing campaign.

3) What’s your story?

What are you trying to say and, most importantly, why? Always look for stories that paint your business in a good light, ie showcase your expertise, your great customer service etc, but bear in mind that today’s discerning consumer is fed up with being sold to. Move away from blatant sales messages, especially on social media, and come up with topical, educational, emotive messages that will attract positive attention for your business. Why are you saying this? Is your message fresh or just the same old, same old? There’s nothing worse than repeating the same tired messages so make sure what you have to say is valid, relevant and showcases the particular area of your business you want to promote. Take inspiration from events around you, customer comments, listen to your staff and incorporate these ideas into your marketing plan. The plan should be flexible, a moving feast, not so set in stone that you have no room to adapt to changing market conditions and consumer demand.

Think about these points every time you review your marketing, work hard and you will soon be creating robust marketing plans that deliver golden opportunities for promoting your business.

• Will you be following our three step plan? What’s worked for you in your marketing? Do you wish we’d just shut up and let you remain a spectator to your competitors’ marketing? Leave a response and tell us what you think… it’ll make our day!

ARE you tired of being fed lines about sustained marketing approaches? Don’t understand why you can’t just fire off one press release and be famous in all the right places? Check out our quick infographic jargon buster and all the pieces will fall into place!

EVERYONE with a website seems to be talking about the new EU Cookie Law, despite very few businesses having a firm grip on what’s expected of them and how best to avoid the quoted £500,000 penalty for breaching the rules.

If you’ve found yourself caught up in cookie confusion, the first thing to understand is that the rules aren’t really new at all. In fact, they were introduced in 2011, with the powers that be (in this case the Information Commissioner’s Office) giving everyone a year to get their websites in order. Despite big figures being thrown around the internet, the ICO has already said it’s “most unlikely” that fines will be meted out at this stage.

So, there’s no need to panic just yet… the most important thing is getting to grips with everything you need to do to ensure your website is ticking all the boxes it can in order to meet the regulations.

What are these cookies anyway?

If you’re not completely clued up when it comes to cookies, here’s a simple outline of what they are, how they work and why the government wants to restrict their use:

In short, cookies are little text files used by websites to remember their visitors. There is, of course, an option to block all cookies with your browser, but this has historically made some websites difficult – or impossible – to use.

The laws, enforceable from May 26 2012, means website visitors must give their consent to the use of cookies, unless a limited exception exists.

In its guidance to businesses, the ICO states: “At present, most browser settings are not sophisticated enough to allow you to assume that the user has given consent to allow your website to set a cookie. Also, not everyone who visits your site will do so using a browser.  They may, for example, have used an application on their mobile device.  So, for now we are advising organisations which use cookies or other means of storing information on a user’s equipment that they have to gain consent some other way”.

The guidance continues: “You need to provide information about cookies and obtain consent before a cookie is set for the first time.  Provided you get consent at that point, you do not need to do so again for the same person each time you use the same cookie (for the same purpose) in future”.

If you want to find out more, the ICO has put together a blog and short video to answer some of the most common questions; you can find it here.

How do I comply with the cookie laws?

The first step is to understand what kind of cookies you use on your site, and how you use them. From there, you should be able to analyse which cookies are absolutely necessary and might not need consent; you should also be able to work out which cookies are no longer needed and make a judgement call on how intrusive your cookies might be.

In order to comply with regulations, you need to state exactly how cookies are used on your website. Web domain company Namesco has come up with some useful advice and recommends that cookie-enabled sites should:

• include a link to your privacy policy on all pages;
• explain in that policy how and why you use cookies; and
• include a link in your policy to www.aboutcookies.org so that your visitors can access instructions on deleting and controlling cookies.

Namesco advises that your privacy policy should explain, for example, that you use cookies to count visitors to your website. If you facilitate the delivery and reading of third party cookies on your website, that should also be addressed. The third parties should be identified; for example, if you use any third party advertising on your website and, if you use Flash cookies, they should also be addressed.

Guidance from the ICO suggests a number of different methods for obtaining user consent, but encourages businesses to work towards their own solution. To make life as easy as possible for you, here’s a summary of the ICO’s suggestions:

• Use pop ups or similar to ask for consent (although Namesco’s blog points out that pop ups are discouraged by Web Content Accessibilty Guidelines)
• Gain consent by using terms of use or terms and conditions.
• Enable preferences that users choose when visiting your website as a means of gaining consent.
• Interactive features, such as videos, that remember how users personalise their visit to your website, can also determine user consent.
• If you use analytic cookies to gather information about how people access and use your website, it may be possible to add a footer or header to a web page containing text.
• If your website allows a third party to set cookies, it is more difficult to obtain consent.  Initiatives that seek to ensure that users are given more and better information about the use of information should be used. Anyone whose website uses or allows third party cookies must ensure that the correct information is delivered to users so they can make their own informed choices.

How will the cookie laws be enforced?

It’s not entirely clear how the rules might be enforced although, as pointed out earlier in this article, it’s highly unlikely that the ICO will start penalising website owners right away and without giving them ample opportunity to comply. According to itpro.co.uk, ICO deputy commissioner and director of data protection David Smith had this to say: “The moratorium on enforcement action comes to an end, but please don’t read that [as] the Information Commissioner’s Office is going to launch a torrent of enforcement action.

“What it really just means is that complaints about websites that don’t get consent go into the normal processes we would take in assessing whether to use our powers.”

He added: “We’re not about enforcing the letter of the law for the sake of the letter of the law. We cannot and do not rule out [issuing fines], but it is most unlikely that breaches of the cookie requirements will meet the criteria we have to satisfy before we can impose a penalty.”

• Has this blog been helpful? Please do leave us a comment and share it with your friends and social media sites. Thanks – Team Tiger.

THERE’S a worrying trend that’s been creeping into magazine publishing over the past few years, and it seems to be getting worse.

We tigers are sick to the back teeth of being asked to pay for advertising space in order for magazines to run news stories. It goes against every law in journalism, it’s wholly unfair to the business associated with the press release and it breaches some pretty important publishing guidelines. What’s more, as far as we’re concerned, it’s a sure fire way to stop us EVER wanting to place spend with said publication and we’d probably advise our clients to do the same.

The thing is, everyone at Turquoise Tiger is a trained journalist. We’ve worked our way from the lowly ranks of junior reporter, all the way up to editors and publishing directors; we know what makes a good story and we know how journalism’s supposed to work.

Here’s a simple checklist all editors worth their salt should follow:

1. Is there a real news angle?
2. Does it fit with our readership in terms of circulation and topic?
3. Is there space? Is it strong enough to push something else off the page if not? Is it too time sensitive to hold over until the next edition?

If all appropriate boxes are ticked, the piece will run. Never – NEVER – should advertising spend have any bearing on whether a genuine news or feature story should run.

How times change!

In my dim and not-too-distant past, I was involved with revamping a number of flagging business to business titles. In every case, I had to stand my ground with advertising sales staff who didn’t quite understand why we shouldn’t just bolster the coffers by running ad-heavy copy in the news section, as a way of encouraging companies to advertise. Every time, I explained why this was a short-term solution that, ultimately, would result in the death of the publication. Every time I explained why, said sales person completely understood and stopped trying to push the issue.

Here’s why promising ‘ed for ad’ doesn’t work long-term:

1. By and large, people like to read good quality content. That’s why they’re called NEWSpapers, not ADpapers.
2. If we scrap editorial integrity in favour of ad spend, the quality gradually begins to slide. Once this happens, we start to see ‘news’ stories with no real angle and feature pieces that are very obviously advertising puffs.
3. Over time, readers will notice the change in editorial content and feel fed up with being duped into reading advertisements in place of quality articles. Eventually, they’ll stop reading altogether.
4. When people stop reading, the very advertisers who pushed for product plugs in the news pages will stop giving said magazine their spend. What’s the point of advertising in a publication nobody reads?
5. The magazine is dead in the water.

Honestly, it’s not rocket science. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?

I don’t know whether the current trend is down to desperation because of a tough economic climate, or if it’s down to too many sales people having overall control of editorial teams (yet another no-no in our book!), but whatever the reason, the fact is they’re heading towards a situation where NOBODY will see the ad you’ve paid for OR the editorial you’ve forked out to have placed.

Here are a few points to think about:

1. Next time one of these problem magazines approaches you for advertising copy, try turning the tables on them. Explain that you place your spend with magazines who support you with genuine editorial opportunities, and that you’ll be happy to consider advertising with them if you’re given due consideration when editorial opportunities arise.
2. Don’t be afraid to ask about readership. There’s a massive difference between circulation and readership and, although readership figures are notoriously difficult to ascertain, any magazine worth working with should be able to give some steer on reader demograph and, ideally, reading habits (ie, which sections are most popular, whether magazines are kept or thrown away, etc, etc).
3. Regardless of how impressive the circulation might seem (and do they have ABC figures to back up their claims?), put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Have you seen the magazine yourself? Do you bother to pick it up and read it? If not, why not? Is it because it’s stuffed with ad features posing as news stories? If so, you have your answer right away.
4. If they insist they’ll only run editorial if you advertise, or if they try to entice you to spend more by promising an extended editorial, you might want to mention they’re in breach of PPA (Periodical Publishers Association) guidelines. They state that any paid-for editorial MUST be clearly marked as an advertising feature and that readers must not be misled into believing that paid for copy forms part of the editorial section. You can read more about this here.

To be clear, not every business-to-business or local magazine is guilty – there are still plenty of really great editors out there who still pride themselves on editorial integrity, and there are plenty of fine salespeople out there who understand that stories should be placed on editorial merit, which is totally divorced from ad spend. By and large, these will be the publications respected within their fields, the ones people genuinely want to support, and the ones who clearly mark any paid-for editorial as ‘advertising feature’.

So there you have it; nobody’s business coffers are bottomless these days, so be careful when placing your ad spend and, now you know the rules, don’t get burnt!

ARE you wondering why people aren’t engaging with your business on Facebook? Have you set up a page, gathered plenty of ‘likes’, but still nobody’s using your wall? Maybe people are responding to your comments, but they’re still not leaving their own posts?

If this is the case, it may well be that you’ve missed a little setting in your page editing suite. It’s really easy to do and, to be honest (sorry Facebook!), the gang in charge haven’t made it that simple for page owners to spot.

So, if your Facebook wall is showing nothing but a string of your own page logo, with only a smattering of comments, it’s time to check your settings. Don’t worry, it’s really simple and the Turquoise Tigers are here to hold your paws.

If you’re on the original Facebook layout (pre- timeline change), here are the steps:

STEP 1: Sign into your Facebook page and click ‘Edit Page’ at the top right hand side. This will take you into your editing suite.

STEP 2: You should now be in the ‘Manage Permissions’ area. If not, just click that option, on the left of the screen, and you’ll end up in the right place. Now, your screen should look something like this:

Look at the area where it states ‘Wall Tab Shows’ and check what’s in the box. You only have two options here – ‘All posts’ or ‘Only Posts By Page’. If the latter option is selected, you can only post messages to your page if you’re one of the page admins, so you need to ensure ‘All posts’ is selected.

STEP 3: Click ‘Save Changes’ at the bottom of your screen.

If you’re on the new Facebook Timeline layout (compulsory post March 2012), here are the steps:

STEP 1: Sign into your Facebook page and click the ‘Manage’ dropdown at the top right hand side, then select ‘Edit Page’ (pictured). This will take you into your editing suite.

STEP 2: You should now be in the ‘Manage Permissions’ area. If not, just click that option, on the left of the screen, and you’ll end up in the right place. Now, your screen should look something like this:

Look at the area where it states ‘Posting Ability’ and check both boxes are ticked. You only have two options here – ‘Everyone can post to insert page name here timeline’ and ‘Everyone can add photos and videos to insert page name here timeline”. If these are not selected, you can only post messages to your page if you’re one of the page admins, so you need to ensure they’re ticked. If you’re really unsure about allowing people to post pics and vids to your page, you can choose to untick the second box but, with the ability always there to moderate your page activity and remove things you don’t like, it seems a bit silly to stunt people’s ability to engage with you.

You’ll also see options for post visibility and tagging visibility. Notice the option to only show your own posts immediately, with everything else needing to be moderated first. In our picture, you’ll see this option is unticked; in our view, it can be quite demoralising for a page fan to go to the trouble of posting on your page, only to have to wait for you to okay it first… it’s yet another barrier to engagement. Of course, never say never, and for pages who get a high level of spam or unsavoury material, the option to moderate first is always open.

STEP 3: Click ‘Save Changes’ at the bottom of your screen.

That’s it – simple! Now you can start REALLY engaging with your audience and encourage them to post their own comments, experiences, questions – anything you like – on your Facebook wall!

TIGER TIP: Despite everything we teach people about social media, some businesses are still afraid of allowing people to post on their Facebook walls. Our advice? If you want to stay ahead of the game and really engage with your audience, you need to go the whole hog.

Don’t forget, you can always hide or delete comments you don’t want to display publicly, but our advice would be to respond accordingly where possible, and leave the delete button for spam or offensive messages only. If someone complains (and if it’s a fair comment), respond professionally, publicly and openly, so others can see how brilliant your customer service is!

Let’s face it, in these days of viral messaging and open communication channels, if someone wants to complain about you online they’ll do it anyway – it’s better to be open and have opportunity to respond, rather than have your customer complain elsewhere in the social media arena, where you might not be aware of the situation, or able to tackle it.

Any questions? Leave us a comment or drop us a line, as always.