Facebook COO’s advice: Just post quickly
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.”
Obviously you three don’t use Facebook. Facebook is about humanizing your company, allowing people to feel comfortable with you not with a logo or corporation. Businesses should post often and not think too much about it, it breaks down the barrier of being some giant company and makes customers think “hey they are on our level.” Plus Facebook users want info often and in short bursts.
So we should all join Facebook so we can be spammed by the latest propaganda and advertising and tell all our friends what we had for breakfast or worse…
Companies need to leverage that, she says, so it’s better for companies to spend half an hour a day on their Facebook strategy then one day a week.
Oh my – “than” not “then.” Shame on you Fortune! These easy ones should not survive the editing process!
Post quickly and often? That might cause a Kayne West kind of moment of you don’t have tight controls, and a clear idea of your message. Bad, bad idea.
Smart Marketing.
Do it quickly, frequently, more often.
Nice way to make money for FB
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Patricia Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Can Meg Whitman Save California?", Melinda Gates ("The $100 Billion Woman"), "MySpace Cowboys," Martha Stewart ("I cannot be destroyed"), Ted Turner ("Gone with the Wind") and Oprah Winfrey ("Oprah Inc."). And she has broken ground with insightful pieces on career management issues such as ego ("Get Over Yourself!"), and "Charisma: Do You Need It? Can You Get It?" Pattie chairs the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business, philanthropy, government, academia, and the arts. And she has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business" cover package since its launch in 1998. She started at Fortune in 1984, covering the big consumer brand companies.
Jessica Shambora started with Fortune as a reporter in June of 2008, following a stint as assistant editor at Travel+Leisure Golf. Shambora has written for Sports Illustrated, SI Latino, Women's Health, and Triathlete. She is a frequent contributor to Postcards. 
Please tell them Sandy! As an avid user of FB we enjoy hearing from the pages where we are fans, but I don’t the message to be long and drawn out. Plus I like to see what my friends are up to since I know people all over the world and I can tell people what’s going on at one time.