Facebook your way to being known

Over the past few years Facebook has become an essential tool for celebrities, bands, comedians and many other entertainers. Over 800 million people across the world are hooked into the social network, meaning there is a willing audience ready to be reached by those who target and use the website effectively.

Fan Pages: Facebook allows entertainers, or anyone with the internet, to create a fan page for themself or someone they wish to promote. Fans simply click the ‘like’ button and then they are ‘subscribed’ to the page’s updates and the person’s activities. Fan pages enable the uploading of pictures and videos, media content the fans can share with their friends further spreading the fan page to a wider audience, representing the ripple effect that social media is creating across the web. From an administrator point of view, the fan pages have a feature called ‘insights’, this allows the person controlling the page to view the audience’s demographics and the spread of the page, with seeing how many people ‘like’ the page it is easy to keep track of how popular the page is. This feature, when the page is being administrated by the PR representatives, allows them to keep track of what methods were effective by seeing how many people are ‘talking about this’ and by how many likes the page gained after the different activities. The administrator also has capability to add a Facebook button to blogs and official websites, allowing more access to the page. There is a flaw with the fan page however, as mentioned, anyone with the internet can create a fan pages, meaning that legitimate pages may be lost amongst those that are real, diluting the intended effect, distracting the much desired attention the PR people are aiming for.

Band Page: These pages are similar to the fan pages, they are ‘liked’ by fans and set up in a similar way; however with this page there is an additional feature called ‘band page’ allowing fans to listen to music, the band have uploaded to the page, for free. This rewards the fans for liking the band and also allows the band to keep track of how many people have listened to each track, meaning that if one is not receiving as many plays as the others, they can share the song on their page and encourage their fans to listen. Similarly to the fan pages, band pages can be shared by fans by going to the cog button (settings) and click share. This then will be turned into a link, with the ability to add a status above the link as demonstrated below:


Although some power lies with the followers and fans of these pages, in how the information is spread, the main power lies with the administrator, a top-down organisation, where they control the images, videos and information being fed to the consumers of the page.

Groups: These are different to the fan pages and band pages, as these are mainly top-down features of the social network; however groups allow the consumers to participate. A group on Facebook is how it sounds, in the way it is a select community of people with a similar interest, who can post in the group and share images and such. The format is comparable with a forum, people can either request to join a group or be invited by the administrator. It also doubles up as a message board, allowing those of a similar interest to post on the group’s wall, consumers contributing as members of this pseudo community. Although groups are not very helpful for promotion of the person/ entertainer the group is made for, it allows fans to share and connect, whilst also letting those in the ‘same business’ to post, perhaps leading to important contacts and resources for the entertainer ‘Yes, you want to encourage people to “like” your page. But building interactions with your content – getting people to like, share and comment on the things your organization posts – is where the Facebook magic happens’ (http://blog.prnewswire.com/2011/08/09/facebook-for-public-relations/ ) this is where the group differs from the ‘like’ page. A negative aspect to ‘groups’ is that it could involve spamming, which is the constant posting of often irrelevant content, which may put fans off being in the group as the constant notifications would become tedious. It also may lead fans into the direction of other artists, diluting their attention away from the group, and lessening their interest of the entertainer.

Profiles: These are the generic accounts on Facebook, however if you are an entertainer looking to build a reputation, then having a Facebook profile will be beneficial for fans to connect on a more ‘personal’ level, thinking that they have a connection with those they idolise. It helps the fans see their idols as someone that is ‘down to earth’ and willing to talk to the fans as if they had a connection. The issue with this is that if a fan posts on an entertainer’s profile and they do not respond due to a large amount of posts and such then the fan may feel ignored and stop liking the entertainer. Also with no verification on Facebook, as there is with Twitter, there are a lot of fake celebrity profiles, which have the potential to tarnish the real person’s reputation.

As shown above, Facebook is an imperative tool in networking, especially for the PR people representing the entertainers, however there are downfalls, as mentioned, that could do more harm than good. Meaning that whether it is the entertainer themselves or a PR professional using the site for promotion, these downfalls will have to be avoided and controlled for an effective outcome.