According to latest research commissioned by PRmoment, over half of Facebook users have never become a fan of anything on Facebook.

Out of the Facebook members who were interviewed, 43 per cent are fans of a brand on Facebook, but just 40 per cent of these say they find brand fan pages useful. This suggests there is great potential for brands to make more of their presence on Facebook, especially as 6 per cent of Facebook users say they have bought items through recommendations they have seen on the site.

When it comes to deciding whether a brand should have a fan page on Facebook, Paul Sutton, head of social communications at agency Bottle PR, says that it doesn’t matter what your business does, but rather what type of culture it has. He explains: “By its very nature, Facebook is an open platform; it enables conversation, debate and the sharing of opinions. In that respect it’s very honest – if your customers or clients aren’t happy, they’ll say so. You can’t control who will be your fan on Facebook, and you can’t control what they’ll say when they are. Companies that don’t like giving away some of the control of their brand struggle to handle that. Similarly, like all social media platforms, Facebook is fluid – it moves constantly. Brands have to be prepared to trust someone to manage the page and answer questions without updates going through approval loops. Again, some cultures don’t enable that.”

Sutton believes that if you have the right business culture, Facebook fan pages are worthwhile: “Facebook allows an organisation or brand to show a human side and to interact directly with existing or potential customers and clients. It allows people to share marketing messages across the social web. It allows you to be extremely creative and different, and to try out ideas at very little cost. It even allows you to involve your own customers in the decisions that will affect them. It’s powerful stuff if you have the right strategy in place.”

Rob Davies, consulting director at communications consultancy oneonone, says although many brands are feeling their way with the opportunities now available on social networks, it is important to be brave and use them to communicate. He says: “The important thing is to get set up on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the like and make regular posts that are interesting, opinionated and relevant to your business. If nothing else you can use your blogging and social media presence to signpost things of interest to your clients or to media contacts. As with all things brand, ubiquity contributes to enquiries and credibility. Embracing social media is also a lighter-touch medium and gives you the chance to give a more personal view of your business. So, engage, be visible and be interesting.”

MethodologyOpinion Research carried out 2013 online interviews for PRmoment in the UK, from 29 October to 2 November 2010.