NTEN offered a fantastic Webinar today featuring Randi Zuckerberg, Director of Marketing at Facebook and Adam Conner from the DC Office on the emerging best practices for nonprofits who want to set up Facebook Fan Pages.

Here's the description

This webinar will be a resource for non-profits and other organizations for social good. Expanding on the Non-Profits on Facebook page, we want to help you harness the power of Facebook and bring positive change to the world. Facebook empowers non-profits by enabling them to mobilize communities, organize events, increase fundraising, reduce costs with free online tools, and raise awareness through viral networks.

I learned a lot, but I did not capture it all. Rumor has it that David Krumlauf was taking great notes, so I'm hoping he'll blog them or fill in some gaps here in the comments.

Here are my notes and I've added some of my own references and links for more context:

Overview:

Facebook is in 30 languages, with 200 Million Users (want some more demographics on users, check out Nick O'Neil's Demographic Page)

Profiles VS Pages

Profiles are for individuals, Pages for Organizations

Recently redesigned pages to be more like profiles

Pages are optimized for mass communication

Profiles are optimized for individual communication

Note that their TOS says you can't create for an individual who doesn't exist. If you do, they will delete it. (Some of you may remember the flap about Ranger Rick from 2007)

A question that everyone asks - "When should my group set up a Fan Page versus a Facebook Group?

Best Answer yet: Set up a Facebook FanPage as your main presence or outpost and use a group for more adhoc, smaller organizing.

Tips for Setting Up Your Fan Page

Keep your page name short and accurate, can't change after you create it There is a day or two lag for it shows up in search Content is lifeblood of your page Start with information tab: be complete, accurate, and honest Fan Page backend is like a cms and if you know a little HTML you can do some spiffy stuff Not all applications are optimized for pages, visit the app page to check All pages require ADMIN - designated FB profile - for security reasons because they want a real person Admin are not public - add multiple admins - invite by email or FB - always have multiples as a precaution so you don't loose access to the page. Standard best practice Wall Tab - accuracy updates of information. "Write Something" lets you post rich content" More interactive content is better - the Wall is a history of interactive Worst thing you can do with a page is dump an RSS feed into the Page - won't be as successful When you make updates to the Page, it appears in the streams of your fans or people who have joined your page. This is very powerful viral marketing When you start to write in the "write something" you get options to add links, photos, videos - post things that are beyond promotion content. Be interactive, make it interesting, provide behind the scenes content. Incorporate events into your page. "Exclusive content is good" Shed the tradition PR schtick content and make it real. Red Cross Fan Page is a great example. So is One Campaign and Stanford University. Lexicon on Facebook lets you track words and phrases

Some Good References

www.facebook.com/facebookpages

www.facebook.com/nonprofits

www.facebook.com/influencers

www.facebook.com/help

www.facebook.com/advertising

Q&A Nuggets

Nonprofits on Facebook set up as a mechanism to share nonprofit best practices on Facebook. That's the intent of Facebook.com/nonprofits so everyone can learn from it.

Fan Pages have a metrics tool that has just upgraded. It's called the insight tool -- you can see better metrics for the Fan Page

If you set up your Fan Page before the nonprofit category, don't worry. They are working on having the ability to change it, but not high priority. Doesn't control the search.

Why can't you invite Fans to your page?

It's intended to prevent spam. Nonprofits are nicely behaved, but others are not so nicely behave. That's why there is a limit 30 people to invite to your page

You can send an update to your members, it's like an email blast and encourage them get people to join.

Yes, you can link Causes to your Facebook Page - Causes will be rolling out some new information next week, so be sure to check the Nonprofits on Facebook.

It is useful to have a group for more intimate conversations, where a page is more public

You can have both. Groups are good for small scale organizing. Pages are more public presence

You can have both. Groups are good for small scale organizing. Pages are more public presence Nonprofits vanity urls are coming, they're discussing. (Don't know what the heck a vanity url is? Read Nick's post)

How to let people know how to join your page?

(1) Put the Name of page so when people search for it - they will find it

(2) No direct way to subscribe

(3) Fan of your page via SMS - text fan name of your page to the Facebook short code (FBOOK (32665))

Can we delete our group?

Deleting groups is difficult - there is a form you can fill out to have the group deleted - use the help page to do it.

The real scoop about a successful fan page.



"We want to encourage you to experiment. Let's be honest, takes an effort to build a community

Just because Facebook is free doesn't mean it is easier to get a million fans. Don't start from scratch - look at the other groups that are already talking about your cause and experiment or piggy back or do cross promotion."

Add Apps Strategically To Your Fan Page - at minimum you want video, photos, Causes, and a few others. "Think like a user, what would encourage your to click through? Your fans don't think about you 24/7. So for the few minutes they might visit you, what do you want them to know?" (Here's some good nitty gritty how-to information on which apps to add to your Fan Page)



Facebook

Did you write a fabulous tip sheet for Facebook Fan Pages? Also, I had major brain blip and forgot the name of the polling app that they mentioned. Anyone retain that? I thought it was wire something. A friend on Twitter say it was "Ask A Friend."