Go to Hershey Co.'s main Facebook page, and you'll quickly notice that one Facebook page just isn't enough for the famous chocolatier, the largest in North America. Among the first things you see on the brand's Facebook pages are links to pages for Hershey's Bliss, Hershey's Syrup, Hershey's Kisses and Hershey's Kitchens, the brand's recipes page.

Although you don't see them linked on the main Hershey's page, the company has pages for a slew of other brands on the site. Reese's, with its more than 8 million likes, has one of the biggest pages. Add to that pages for Jolly Rancher, Ice Breakers, Pieces Candies and more, and you're talking about a lot of responsibility.

Yet, Public Relations Manager Anna Lingeris and her team at Hershey manage to regularly engage with fans, in part, she says, by sticking to three key pillars: awareness, content, and agility.

Awareness

One simple rule that companies should observe on Facebook and, really, across all social media: Don't be clueless. And yet, they so often are. Lingeris says companies have to expand their horizons beyond the bubbles of their own news and announcements.

"It's a shared channel," she says. "It's not a channel to talk about everything you want to talk about. You always have to be aware of what's happening in the world. You specifically have to be aware of what your fans want to hear, what they want to talk about."

Filling up your Facebook wall with nothing but announcements about the company's next big initiative—even a contest—isn't the way to go, Lingeris says. Every once and a while, fans simply want you to open up the floor and ask, "What do you like?"

"Sometimes the most reaction we get from [fans] is when they just talk about the love of the product," she says. "They just want to voice their opinion."

You can learn a lot from those opinions, Lingeris says.

Content

Why have so many pages under the Hershey's umbrella, anyway?

"Each brand has its own personality," Lingeris says. "To mash them all into one, you're doing a disservice, because you're looking at it from a corporate standpoint rather than a brand standpoint."

Not too long ago, Lingeris' team inherited the company's Facebook pages from the marketing side of the company. Hershey is considering pushing some pages together, but Lingeris says it's important for each personality to shine through.

For example, the main Hershey's page has a genial, friendly tone, whereas Hershey's Kitchens poses many updates as helpful tips. The Reese's voice is a bit more conversational.

Hershey works with its agencies to come up with content, Lingeris says, and sometimes content is cross-posted among multiple pages. Finding content to post "is always a challenge across the board," she says. The company offers everything that it can: polls, behind-the-scenes videos of making commercials, photos, word clouds, even posts from other social networks such as Pinterest and Twitter.

Since moving to the PR side of the company, Hershey has upped its Facebook posting for each page from maybe six per month to one or two every day. More content generates more engagement, Lingeris says. When it comes to answering fan questions, the company has a decision tree to determine whether someone answers, who does, and when.

Hershey is aiming to make Facebook more of "a one-stop shop" for fans, Lingeris says. This summer, the company hosted a s'mores photo contest entirely on Facebook. Previously, the company had used Facebook to promote contests hosted in other places, which took a toll on public involvement.

"The more you click, the less participation you have," Lingeris says.

Speed and agility

Last summer, Hershey dealt with what could have been a huge Facebook disaster. Vinny Martino, a boy with Down syndrome and leukemia, sent the company a letter requesting a T-shirt. He collects them. The company declined, and within minutes the reply was up at the T's for Vinny Facebook page.

"Fans began commenting on our page expressing severe disappointment," Lingeris says.

Hershey immediately responded by sending Martino a package containing lots of T-shirts, and it wrote up a response apologizing for not sending one to begin with. Martino posted a picture of himself wearing the shirts. "We took something that could quickly escalate into a more negative situation and made it positive," Lingeris says.

She says that example shows how awareness, content, and agility all tie in together. "You have to be aware of what's happening on that page to act quickly."

Matt Wilson is a staff writer for Ragan.com, where this story first appeared.

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