Postcards

How the power players do it - by Fortune senior editor at large Patricia Sellers

Facebook COO's advice: Just post quickly

September 15, 2009: 4:14 PM ET

By Beth Kowitt, Fortune reporter

Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg offered up some tips on how businesses can best use the social networking site during Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit.

The biggest key: companies can't think about using the site in the same way they have conceived of traditional advertising, says the Facebook COO, who is No. 22 on Fortune's 2009 Most Powerful Women list.

The beauty of Facebook is the immediacy with which businesses can reach their consumers. A traditional advertising campaign might take six months to roll out, but Facebook erases that delay. Companies need to leverage that, she says, so it' s better for companies to spend half an hour a day on their Facebook strategy than one day a week.

"This isn't about perfect messaging," she said. "Do it often and quickly and imperfectly and just keep changing it."

Some groups that are using Facebook well, according to Sandberg: President Obama, who, with about 7 million fans, has the largest following on Facebook.

Sandberg mentioned the Huffington Post, which by integrating Facebook has given users a more personal experience. She also pointed to a more traditional media content provider — Disney (DIS) owned-ABC's Lost, which has more than a million fans and uses the page to post unique content.

The biggest pointer for using social media she says: "Just do it quickly."

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About This Author
Pattie Sellers
Patricia Sellers
Senior Editor at Large, Fortune
Executive Director of MPW/Live Content, Time Inc.

Fortune senior editor at large Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Marissa Mayer: Ready to Rumble at Yahoo," "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), and "Remodeling Martha" (Martha Stewart). She has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business" package every year since its launch in 1998. Pattie is Executive Director of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business and beyond. She oversees MPW programs that enable women leaders to extend their influence and empower the next generation—such as Fortune MPW Entrepreneurs and the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. Beyond her Fortune duties, she is also developing Live Content across Time Inc. Pattie grew up in Allentown, PA, graduated from the University of Virginia, and started at Fortune in 1984. Her blog, Postcards, is about how power players lead, manage others, and navigate their careers.

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