5. There are three ways to get some answers from “help” centers.
a. FB Help Center—Back to Rule #1—Facebook is different.
i. FB help center probably has 5%-10% of the answers business people are looking for and that are readily accessible.
ii. "Nobody" really works for FB. You will never get a telephone number or a real person to chat with at FB. "Nobody" is who you talk with at FB.
iii. FB terms of service and the FB demographics are constantly changing. So does the Facebook user interface (what you see on the screen and how you move around between your Facebook pages.
iv. Facebook and most businesses are not yet well adapted. In fact, there are structural conflicts between the way FB thinks and the way most businesses think that will probably never be resolved. Best examples of this are probably: Bandwidth issues and “a live, free help desk”.
v. You cannot change the way FB works or thinks. You can only adapt the way you work and think to be compatible with FB.
vi. FB Applications will help a lot, if you can find the right ones or develop your own, which is another abyss, but one that FB is genuinely interested in improving.
vii. In spite of what you may think, among FB businesses, “It’s D-Day and you are in the ‘first wave’ hitting the beach”. There are very few people, including most all of your competitors who have a superior presence or advantage over you. There are a few web guys who are doing some creative things and a few big corporations who have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in social marketing, but for the most part the average business is still sitting on the sidelines watching the big boys play the game.
Advantage: None that I can find.
Disadvantage: Time consuming.
b. Browsing the WEB. You will, as a general rule, get better answers faster by browsing the web outside of FB than at FB Help Center, but you will need to
i. Re-read items Ibi-vi above.
ii. FB recently started added urls to every answer in their help library, so you get those too, without having to suffer through the woefully inadequate FB help indexes.
Advantage: No cash upfront.
Disadvantage: Limited answers and time consuming.
c. Hire someone who knows the answers.
Advantage: Quick answers, most of the time.
Disadvantage: Expensive, not within everyone’s budget.
a. FB Help Center—Back to Rule #1—Facebook is different.
i. FB help center probably has 5%-10% of the answers business people are looking for and that are readily accessible.
ii. "Nobody" really works for FB. You will never get a telephone number or a real person to chat with at FB. "Nobody" is who you talk with at FB.
iii. FB terms of service and the FB demographics are constantly changing. So does the Facebook user interface (what you see on the screen and how you move around between your Facebook pages.
iv. Facebook and most businesses are not yet well adapted. In fact, there are structural conflicts between the way FB thinks and the way most businesses think that will probably never be resolved. Best examples of this are probably: Bandwidth issues and “a live, free help desk”.
v. You cannot change the way FB works or thinks. You can only adapt the way you work and think to be compatible with FB.
vi. FB Applications will help a lot, if you can find the right ones or develop your own, which is another abyss, but one that FB is genuinely interested in improving.
vii. In spite of what you may think, among FB businesses, “It’s D-Day and you are in the ‘first wave’ hitting the beach”. There are very few people, including most all of your competitors who have a superior presence or advantage over you. There are a few web guys who are doing some creative things and a few big corporations who have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in social marketing, but for the most part the average business is still sitting on the sidelines watching the big boys play the game.
Advantage: None that I can find.
Disadvantage: Time consuming.
b. Browsing the WEB. You will, as a general rule, get better answers faster by browsing the web outside of FB than at FB Help Center, but you will need to
i. Re-read items Ibi-vi above.
ii. FB recently started added urls to every answer in their help library, so you get those too, without having to suffer through the woefully inadequate FB help indexes.
Advantage: No cash upfront.
Disadvantage: Limited answers and time consuming.
c. Hire someone who knows the answers.
Advantage: Quick answers, most of the time.
Disadvantage: Expensive, not within everyone’s budget.
Upcoming:
The Culture Clash between Business and Facebook
The Culture Clash between Business and Facebook
