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In the year 2016, it is rare to see an effective content marketing strategy that doesn’t recommend a company having some sort of Facebook presence. Furthermore, depending on the number of locations, products or messages, many companies today cultivate a strong social community via multiple pages. While chunking up a following among numerous Facebook pages may seem counter intuitive, it often works to the advantage of some brands, especially for those with very distinct or wide varieties of product lines (think 3M, Johnson & Johnson, etc.).
However, one golden rule must always be followed when a company has multiple accounts to manage – keep the content varied. Varying the content for each page is key to keeping your followers engaged and informed for these main reasons:
1) A Facebook fan may follow more than one of your brand pages. This occurs more often than not and can look unprofessional to your audience if they see that the same content is being posted to supposedly different pages. It can call into question – what’s the point is having multiple brand pages? With Facebook’s new algorithm changes, it is essential to your marketing strategy to keep up to date on how the links will appear to a fan who follows more than one of your brand pages.
2) A company can come off idle, too corporate and/or out of touch. Often times a company will create multiple brand pages to better connect with specific customers and appear more approachable. Therefore, when the same Facebook content is posted to these multiple accounts, the relate-ability and relevancy to the specific followers of that page can be lost and cause disengagement.
One brand page vs. multiple brand pages
Building a loyal audience via numerous Facebook brand pages may seem ineffective, however, this is the key to some brands’, such as Lululemon and 3M, online social media success. But for other businesses, such as Butter Lane and Primp Boutique, one Facebook brand page does a proper job of growing a strong community on social media.
For a company such as Lululemon, with multiple locations, you’ll find information on in-store events and product stock details on their local brand pages. These individual stores are responsible for implementation and determining content for each community. On Lululemon’s main page the strategy centers around responding to guest needs, promoting new gear and highlighting with active photos the Lululemon lifestyle.
3M also has multiple Facebook brand pages that are under the umbrella of the main corporate 3M page. The other brand pages highlight and promote each individual product of 3M, with content focused on that product and that specific community of customers.
On the other hand, for businesses such as Butter Lane and Primp Boutique, one brand page makes sense because there is overlap between customers. These type of companies see the most value in having one consistent voice for their business on Facebook. Additionally, having a single page allows companies such as Primp, for example, to engage with their customers in a streamlined and sustainable way without losing the brand voice.
Quick tip
Though keeping the content varied is the best strategy when dealing with multiple brand pages, sometimes this isn’t feasible when similar messaging is needed to be communicated. In this case, customizing and tailoring your message to fit each unique page and that audience is the best strategy. By doing this, it will help fans stay engaged because they still receiving relevant messages meant for them, as opposed to traditional marketing messaging that feels forced or unconnected.
If you’re interested in more ways you can tackle digital marketing or you’re looking for tips to make your brand stand out, Allee Creative can help!
We currently Have one Facebook page for our business. It is a restaurant. However we also have a large music venue and function room. We believe there should be three separate pages. Is it possible to list these as three individual pages/ links while maintaining the followers?
(We have many followers and don’t want to start from zero again.) Thank you!
Hi, Jen. Thanks for the questions. While it’s doable (albeit sometimes tricky) to merge pages together into one page, creating separate pages and trying to maintain all the same likes/followers across the board is harder to do). If you do want to create two additional separate pages, it would help to have a communication strategy put together on how you will cross-promote and invite your current page followers to then also ‘like’ your new pages once they are created. Facebook also has some good resources on their FAQs page that could be helpful as well. Good luck!
Hi Jen, we have a global brand where distributers have set up their own page/channels. My concern now is that our brand marketing message/tov seems to be getting diluted so we are looking to bring this back under one roof. Could you tell me is there a solution that allows a one brand page, that lets each country manage their own territory, adverts etc. The global site can also from time to time posts global marketing ads etc.
Hi Chris. Absolutely; there is an option to have a uniformed global brand page on Facebook and still have your country subsets, etc. keep access to their pages. This is something we’ve done for one of our international med device clients. Here is a bit more information on that: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/331800410323820
Hi,
We are a non-profit, civil legal aid firm with one name brand, but 3 regional offices. Our corporate office has a facebook page and prior to creating 2 more pages (one for each regional office) I was seeking the easiest way to manage each service area and their needs.
What is the best way to manage pages for this type of structure?
Hi, Margaret. This will all depend on your demographics, they type of content you are posting and the resources you have to manage it all. Typically, clients will want to read and receive information that is specific to them–so, from the regional offices. But, there may be times when it’s appropriate for them to hear from your corporate office as well. We’d be happy to help with a content assessment if that’s something you’re looking for. You can contact us here if that’s something you’re interested in pursuing. Thanks for reaching out.
HI, we have 2 brand that does the same thing. Do i need 2 separate Facebook page or should I combine into 1 page to avoid duplication since all of our content and marketing will be the same across both brand.
Hi there. Without knowing exactly what your brand does (and what you mean by they both do the same thing), it’s hard to say. If you have two distinct brands, the content marketing tactics and messaging wouldn’t/shouldn’t necessarily be the same for both (otherwise, why are there two brands to begin with?) Do you have distinct audiences? Are your brand location-based? There are a few additional questions and pieces of information to consider before deciding on two pages or a combined page on Facebook.
Hi there. We have a Parent Group of company under which we have four brands with distinct line of products. Should we create the Parent Group company as the main facebook page and have 4 brands as (4 seperate business pages) under the Main Group account.