First off, I would like to preface this all by saying that I have worked with arguably the biggest nightmare in social media marketing that a paranormal team can have. I know what it is like to get the wrong kind of attention drawn to your team because of the misuse of these tools. Because of this, I am probably more cautious about how I use Facebook, Twitter, etc with the team I now work with. I still struggle today with the reputation I received based on the actions of another under the name of a team I was once affiliated with, and I don't know that I will ever be completely free of that stigma.
The ability to reach millions of people instantly, easily, and from the comforts of your home is a double edged sword. You can bring down the reputation of your entire team with a single post that only took seconds to write. I don't want to over dramatize the weight of the responsibility you carry by running a Facebook or Twitter page, but I also think that everyone should take these things seriously. The most important thing to keep in mind when posting is the intention of your page, and whether or not the content you've prepared serves that intention. A discussion must happen between all members of your team about what you plan on using the page for, what you hope to achieve by having the page, and how you hope to reach those goals. Your social media outlets are representative of every member of your team, and should reflect your team's core values, goals, and mission across the board- no matter which administrator is posting.
It would be impossible to put together a group comprised of people who all hold the exact same opinions on the wide range of subjects we encounter as paranormal investigators, like minded maybe, but never unanimous agreement on all things. Because of these differing opinions, it is important to keep personal opinions clear and not portrayed as coming from the entire team. I am not suggesting that you avoid opinion, or taking a stance on your page- you don't need to please everyone all the time but you do need to consider the other members of your team. I can say from personal experience that it is very frustrating when a very hard stance is taken by the team you work with publicly and you don't feel the same way. I more than once found myself reading along on a blog, or Facebook with the public about the new opinion I supposedly held as a member of that team. These were not small issues either, these were posts that used harsh language, were often offensive, and caused a large chasm to grow between "us" and the local paranormal community. While I wasn't the author of these posts, because they came from a collective source I received the same mistrust and judgement. These are the types of situations in which you should carefully consider what you post, and the responsibility you have to your team to protect their reputation and to maintain the trust you have. These situations can be avoided by saving that type of content for a secondary page whether it is your personal Facebook, a Twitter or a blog.
Speaking of differing opinions...by putting your team out for public consumption you will be unable to avoid people who hold different opinions, and people who will voice theirs on your page. Personally, I don't think this is something to avoid, and I believe that teams who dismiss all differing opinions or "bullies" are setting themselves up to look weak. I can't even begin to think that I have an advanced education in this field, or that I have enough experience to be able to do everything independently without the assistance of others with different strengths or experience than my own. If you have a public page, where you post evidence, you should plan on hearing from people who don't hear that EVP the way you do, or believe they have a different way to explain a photograph. If you don't want to hear/see or handle these comments-you shouldn't be posting evidence for the public to see. You don't have to take nasty comments, or engage every skeptic you come across, but the way you handle these situations says a lot about your team. If you become defensive, angry, or fight with people on your social media sites, whether the other person was in the wrong or not, you look unprofessional. But you also look unprofessional if you refuse to accept or consider any other opinions on your practices or your evidence. If you claim to be a scientific research team, or to use scientific methods how can you justify avoiding any form of peer review? Every situation is a lesson, and a opportunity for growth and you're missing the opportunity to learn from others by calling those who question something respectfully the "bullies".
Save the drama for your mama. But really, quit it with the dramatics. We are not teenagers, OK maybe I was when I started doing this...but still! Much like unprofessionally engaging in heated exchanges with those who reply to the content on your page, airing your dirty laundry is a quick and easy to lose all perceptions of professionalism. I wont deny that there are people in this field who I find laughable, annoying or completely disagree with. However, I would never drag that out on a team's Facebook page that I worked with because that seems ridiculous and immature. But it happens, and I am always amazed. I know that there are frustrating situations in this field- a client cancels last minute after weeks of research, there are disagreements within the team, someone leaves the team, two teams are in a territorial argument over a location, etc. but none of these situations are going to be resolved by venting on the Internet. If you really feel the need to talk about it on a public forum, you can take the lesser risk of posting it on your personal profile. Again, every post should serve the ultimate marketing intention of your page and I doubt that drama is high on any one's list of aspirations for their team.
Facebook, unlike Twitter, offers its users a variety of page
formats within the site. Each format serves different purposes, and has its own
uses. In order to make an educated decision about which format(s) best suit
your team, you must have first established what you plan on using the page for,
what you hope to accomplish, and what kind of interaction you want with
others.
A personal pet peeve of mine is the use of a personal profile under the name of a paranormal team. This is the standard profile we all use on Facebook, but in place of an actual name like Jane Doe, there will be some sort of variation on a team's name in order to bypass Facebook's policies regarding profile names. Why does this bother me? I will no longer add users like this for a couple reasons. The first, these profiles allow users to act anonymously to some degree, because these profiles aren't under their name, do not include their personal information, and they aren't using their photographs. I don't see the motivation to add these users, giving them access to my information, only to follow their team. Fan pages do not have access to their fans personal profiles, which limits their ability to comment on their personal posts, pictures and activity. Paranormal teams that use personal profiles often make the mistake of commenting and interacting with other users under the name of their team. I honestly cannot think of a situation in which a personal profile would be beneficial for a team- no matter what they hope to accomplish with social media marketing.
Facebook offers a much more convenient service to users with business pages, and I would recommend this style for most teams, or organizations. It's a great tool for those looking to advertise their services, their team and to share content with those interested. I would consider these pages the "face" of a team, and should at all times be the best representation possible. These pages should not be used for team communication, for example, I often see teams posting on their business page things like "Team Members, please call me by Friday about whether or not you will be attending Saturday's investigation". This is an unprofessional use of this tool, and I honestly quickly "unlike" pages that do this. Why? Because, to be perfectly honest, I don't care about your team management. Another business page faux pas, is the desperate pursuit of "likes". There seems to be a misconception spreading like wildfire through the paranormal community that your success as a team, or as an organization is measured by the number of people who "like" your Facebook page. When I created a business page for the first team I worked with, I immediately began watching others both locally and internationally. It was obvious that many pages were working for one goal, to get as many people as possible to "like" that page. They posted on each others walls, bartered deals with other teams to promote one another, and held giveaways. But, I just sat there scratching my head, what was really so important about how many random people out there "liking" our page? These random users wouldn't be the source of our cases, they wouldn't really create that much of a networking opportunity, and they probably wouldn't even interact with us on the content we posted. It was then that I knew that I had to worry about quality over quantity when it came to the users we engaged. If you want more users to like your page, you should have an idea of what kind of users you're looking for. I kept my intentions pretty general with my first page, I was simply looking for others in the area with an interest in the paranormal. In order to find these users, I created a Facebook ad that only appeared to those in the area that "liked" similar content. It is simple changes in mindset like these that can really take a typical page to a new level of success and productivity. This is your tool, make it work for you.
If you're looking for a way to hold discussions, group together like minded people, or manage your team, you should turn the Groups available through Facebook. These Groups have varying privacy settings that you can manipulate to better serve your team, or your purpose. For example, you can create a public group in which the existence is public and so is the content or you can go as far as to create a secret group, where the existence is concealed, and content is private.As mentioned above, business pages are not always the best place to share evidence for public consumption and critique. However, these groups offer more opportunity for you to publish photos, documents, etc and a better platform in which to discuss these items. You can also avoid my pet peeve of using your business page to communicate with your team by creating a secret group, where you can securely share case information, meeting dates using the events within groups, etc. But, for the love of all that is holy, do not get "add happy" and add every single person on your friends list to your new group. This goes back to quality over quantity, find those who have a genuine interest, or simply post an invitation. I believe there is a special circle of hell reserved for those who add their friends to random groups on a regular basis.
Well, I must say that this post has become much longer than I intended! I guess I really just love hearing myself talk...you can look for (hopefully much shorter) follow up posts in the next week with more information about Twitter, Instagram, etc!
A personal pet peeve of mine is the use of a personal profile under the name of a paranormal team. This is the standard profile we all use on Facebook, but in place of an actual name like Jane Doe, there will be some sort of variation on a team's name in order to bypass Facebook's policies regarding profile names. Why does this bother me? I will no longer add users like this for a couple reasons. The first, these profiles allow users to act anonymously to some degree, because these profiles aren't under their name, do not include their personal information, and they aren't using their photographs. I don't see the motivation to add these users, giving them access to my information, only to follow their team. Fan pages do not have access to their fans personal profiles, which limits their ability to comment on their personal posts, pictures and activity. Paranormal teams that use personal profiles often make the mistake of commenting and interacting with other users under the name of their team. I honestly cannot think of a situation in which a personal profile would be beneficial for a team- no matter what they hope to accomplish with social media marketing.
Facebook offers a much more convenient service to users with business pages, and I would recommend this style for most teams, or organizations. It's a great tool for those looking to advertise their services, their team and to share content with those interested. I would consider these pages the "face" of a team, and should at all times be the best representation possible. These pages should not be used for team communication, for example, I often see teams posting on their business page things like "Team Members, please call me by Friday about whether or not you will be attending Saturday's investigation". This is an unprofessional use of this tool, and I honestly quickly "unlike" pages that do this. Why? Because, to be perfectly honest, I don't care about your team management. Another business page faux pas, is the desperate pursuit of "likes". There seems to be a misconception spreading like wildfire through the paranormal community that your success as a team, or as an organization is measured by the number of people who "like" your Facebook page. When I created a business page for the first team I worked with, I immediately began watching others both locally and internationally. It was obvious that many pages were working for one goal, to get as many people as possible to "like" that page. They posted on each others walls, bartered deals with other teams to promote one another, and held giveaways. But, I just sat there scratching my head, what was really so important about how many random people out there "liking" our page? These random users wouldn't be the source of our cases, they wouldn't really create that much of a networking opportunity, and they probably wouldn't even interact with us on the content we posted. It was then that I knew that I had to worry about quality over quantity when it came to the users we engaged. If you want more users to like your page, you should have an idea of what kind of users you're looking for. I kept my intentions pretty general with my first page, I was simply looking for others in the area with an interest in the paranormal. In order to find these users, I created a Facebook ad that only appeared to those in the area that "liked" similar content. It is simple changes in mindset like these that can really take a typical page to a new level of success and productivity. This is your tool, make it work for you.
If you're looking for a way to hold discussions, group together like minded people, or manage your team, you should turn the Groups available through Facebook. These Groups have varying privacy settings that you can manipulate to better serve your team, or your purpose. For example, you can create a public group in which the existence is public and so is the content or you can go as far as to create a secret group, where the existence is concealed, and content is private.As mentioned above, business pages are not always the best place to share evidence for public consumption and critique. However, these groups offer more opportunity for you to publish photos, documents, etc and a better platform in which to discuss these items. You can also avoid my pet peeve of using your business page to communicate with your team by creating a secret group, where you can securely share case information, meeting dates using the events within groups, etc. But, for the love of all that is holy, do not get "add happy" and add every single person on your friends list to your new group. This goes back to quality over quantity, find those who have a genuine interest, or simply post an invitation. I believe there is a special circle of hell reserved for those who add their friends to random groups on a regular basis.
Well, I must say that this post has become much longer than I intended! I guess I really just love hearing myself talk...you can look for (hopefully much shorter) follow up posts in the next week with more information about Twitter, Instagram, etc!
