Walson Communications recently completed a campaign on Facebook for one of our clients, the National Fibromyalgia Association. We were able to reach the NFA's goal of getting 10,000 fans in less than 3 weeks for the campaign called "10,000 for 10 million."

Jon Lansner of the Orange County Register featured the campaign in his blog, “Social Sunday.”

Here is our complete text of “Best Practices and Lessons Learned”for other nonprofits who wish to connect with their audiences viaFacebook.

1. Select internal Facebook Team, preferably 3-4 staff members who are already familiar with using Facebook.
2. Explain up front what you hope to accomplish when you meet your goals of the campaign
3. Develop timeline for key updates and posts.
4. Place Facebook logo prominently on your home page, and every page on your website.
5. Cross-promote Facebook page in e-newsletters, e-alerts, brochures,with key support group leaders nationwide, and send announcements ofyour campaign to media contacts
6. Don’t ask fans for anything except for them to share their stories – this creates a “voice” for their community
7. Mix it up: don’t just post articles from your website. Some days we posted links to podcasts, YouTube videos and news articles;
8. Be Personal. One day we posted an informal video of the presidentof the NFA with a message specifically addressing the campaign andthanking the Facebook fans. Another day, we posted photos and bio’s ofstaff members.
9. Posts keep the communication going: make them new and interesting to the fans.
10. Answer the questions that are directed to your organization; point them to your website, if they need additional information.

Lessons Learned:

One of the biggest learning curves of managing a Facebook Fans pageis not just knowing WHAT to post, but WHEN and HOW MANY. Some fanspages send out one post a day, others two to five posts a day, everyfew days or even longer. Fan “reaction” can vary with each frequency.There’s no hard and fast rule on this.

The NFA made 1 to 3 posts per day, spaced evenly throughout the day.Gauge your fans. Gauge the “mood” of the page, then post (or don’tpost) accordingly.

Another lesson the team learned by being fans of other pages ison’t keep reminding your fans to help you get more fans. The pages whodo this come across as whiny, needy, ungrateful and, well, annoying.Post good content, and they will come!

Remember, the page really belongs to the fans, not just to your organization.