It is an undeniable fact that we are social creatures and social networks like Facebook make it even easier for us to interact with one another. Facebook has become such the social media hub that, according to data released in December 2011 by Comscore, three out of four minutes spent on social networking sites are spent on Facebook.

With that much time being spent on Facebook, it is no wonder that brands are having a tough time managing the excessive amounts of commenting on their pages. These brand pages have become the meeting place for customers to share their likes and dislikes and to make their voices heard by business owners. For many companies, it is no longer possible to spend an hour or two each day moderating and responding to wall posts and comments. It has now become a full-time job.

To help your brand pages get a little relief from excessive comment overload on Facebook, here are five steps that your company needs to take:

Establish some ground rules.

Let your fans and visitors know up front what the rules are for posting on your wall and commenting. This will prevent any arguments from your fan base as well as any questions from site administrators. For the most part, when a person knows the rules of what is acceptable and what is not, it will avoid any trouble in the long run.

There is a time and place for negative comments.

So don’t delete them all. You might think that having a negative comment or two (or ten) will do too much damage to your company’s reputation, but that really isn’t the case. You want to show your fans that you can handle criticism and will respond swiftly when there are complaints. Going with a scorched-earth policy on negativity can lead people to think you just don’t care. Show them that you can take the bad with the good and put a positive spin on them.

Stick to your guns.

If you make a rule, enforce it! Moderate your Wall posts and comments so that you aren’t violating your own rules. Failing to moderate comments can make you seem wishy-washy. Make sure your followers know where you stand and that when you say something, you mean it. This goes a long way in upholding your reputation.

Be ready for any situation.

Make sure that whoever is responsible for your social media marketing is trained to handle every possible scenario, from the absolute worst to the absolute best. How many people will you need to have on hand to moderate if you are suddenly flooded with 10,000 comments in an hour? How will they handle any PR crises that happen overnight?

Call in the professionals.

There are many people out there who live for social media and take great pride in their ability to moderate 1,000 comments in an hour. There is software available that can help you in any type of social networking situation. You want to be sure that you have enough people focusing on your page to keep up with the flow of comments.

Have you had to deal with Facebook commenting overload on your brand page? What did you do to overcome it? Share with us!

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With over 800 million users, Facebook is the largest online social network. Every day, enormous amounts of information are collected about each active user. This allows Page owners to gain insight into their fans and discover what needs to be done in order to offer them a better experience, which will help improve marketing results.

When you know which metrics to focus on, it is easy to get the most vital information without having to sort through infinite data. Here are the three most important metrics to watch when it comes to improving your Facebook pages.

How many people are “Talking About This”?

This metric is viewable by everyone who visits your page. This number totals up the number of people who have interacted with your page in one way or another within the last seven days. That includes people who have liked you, shared or commented on a post, tagged your page, answered a question, etc. Each week, you will be able to see the increased or decreased percentage of People Talking About This.

Engaging users is the key to creating avid fans. It is important to create a strong online community if you want to build up your fan base. Ask them questions, take a poll. Encourage users to respond and like your posts. Add little calls-to-action in each post in order to foster interaction between your fans and your page. When people leave a comment, respond! Show them that you really are there and ready to talk.

Keep track of your “Engaged Users.”

The Page Post Information section on your dashboard will tell you how many unique users have clicked on your post or in the comments. This information will be tracked for 28 days.

This metric will give you better insight into what types of posts encourage the most interaction from users-like questions or pictures. When you know what is getting the most engagement from users, you will be able to gear your posts specifically for them.

Know your “External Referrers.”

When you click on “Reach,” you will be able to see how many times people were brought to your Facebook Page from an outside source and on what dates. This is important because you want to know where and how people are finding you. It could be from one of your blogs, an outside blog or a search engine.

When you know where your traffic is coming from, then you need to make sure you have your Facebook Page optimized so that it can be indexed by Google. You can do this by having key worded information in your “Info Tab.”

To get more traffic from outside sites, try to guest post for others in your niche. When you put yourself out there, you will increase the likelihood that more people will find you.

Have a Like button on your websites and blogs so that you can gain more traffic from your own sites as well. Let visitors know that you have “Gone Social.” To build up your fan numbers, you need to take action and drive them to your Facebook Page.

Are you monitoring your Facebook Insights? What has been the most helpful to you? Share with us!

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