So you’ve been told to create a Facebook
business page right? Apparently having a
page will put your business on the map,
you’ll drive loads of leads to your website,
blog, offers and make a ton of sales!
Along the way you’ll also build your
credibility, reach and influence and
perhaps become a celebrity CEO or a well
known public figure (if that floats your
boat!)
Well, all this is actually true! It can all
happen and more, there is a “but” though
and it’s a BIG one!
It will come down to the amount of time
and effort you put into your page.
Unfortunately we can no longer just slap a
page up and people come flocking.
Oh no, times have changed on Facebook.
So what are the fundamental things you
MUST do to get your first 1,000 fans on
Facebook and consequently your leads &
profile?
Here’s 10 Steps which, if carried out with
gusto and invested in regularly will bring
you untold rewards of great engagement
and exposure! Ready? Let’s begin.
Step 1. Make your page
interesting
I know this sounds obvious, but actually
you wouldn’t believe how many boring
pages there are on Facebook. This of
course is great news for you as it means
the market is wide open for fabulously
designed interesting Facebook pages!
Here’s what I mean by interesting;
For some more fantastic examples of
timeline cover designs check out this post
– http://
www.jeffbullas.com/2012/04/04/20-
awesome-facebook-cover-photos/
Step 2. Create epic content
This is a toughie. You would have to be
some kind of Super Hero if you could
create EPIC content with every post you
make. But you must strive to deliver the
most interesting, relevant and results
based content you can for your target
market.
One of the ways to do this is to ask
yourself – Will this content I am about to
publish create CHANGE! How can I invoke
action? How can I add the most value?
All great questions to ask as you make a
post and I mean any post, from a small
status update to a full on promotional
campaign.
In the meantime by content I mean, status
updates, videos, images, comments, blog
posts, webinars, contest. Pretty much
anything you publish publicly!
Step 3. Invite and tell all your
friends
Facebook gives us the opportunity to
invite our friends in the admin panel
above our page.
So make good use of it and go and ask
your pals if they’ll come and like your
page.
You could also send a message out to
some of your nearest and dearest and ask
them to share with their community.
Please note this will only work if their
community is in the same niche as you. So
if your target market is arts & crafts, it’s
no good sending it your pal who
specialises in personal finance!
Also please don’t SPAM! It’s super uncool.
So don’t just send this out to a random
group of people in your FB address book,
hoping someone will do the right thing.
You will end up with lots of people leaving
your conversation, probably some spam
reports and many unlikes!
Something you can do though, that is
super powerful is to post about your new
page on your personal wall, (include a
photo), asking your friends to like it. I’ve
done this very regularly and it always gets
great results!
You can also set up a Facebook event
announcing your new page and invite all
your friends to the event and of course
you can offer an ethical bribe in the form
of a free gift, but people need to head
over to your page to retrieve it. Very
effective!
Step 4. Get networking
Absolutely necessary and absolutely time
consuming! This is probably the most time
consuming role you will have on Facebook
but without this your business will grow
very slowly!
The more you can get out into the
Facebook community and comment on
others posts, get involved in the
conversation, like pages and generally be a
social butterfly, the more you will reap
the rewards!
One great tool to help you do this is
“Interest Lists”. You can create interest
lists for all your favourite pages and
people, and then save it as your main
newsfeed. This means you’ll only see posts
from the pages and people you most want
to see content from / network with and
filter out all the noise!
Very effective and time saving!
Step 5. Run contests
Who doesn’t love a good contest eh??
That’s what makes these little gems go
viral! People love to win free stuff! Done
correctly contests can rocket your fan
base and your customer database in a very
short space of time.
The key is to create a page tab for a
contest and add a like-gate to the tab.
That’s basically an image that overlays on
top of the contest information and tells
visitors they need to ‘like’ the page before
they can enter the contest. You need to be
creative with this as it can turn some
people off, but on the whole, you’ll get a
lot more likes and lots of contest entries
also! (Remember on the thank you page of
your contest you can encourage people to
visit your website and all sorts, but I’ll
save the benefits of funnel building for
another post!)
Make your prize great & relevant! Not
just an mini iPad. Remember you want
to attract a targeted audience.
Know the objective of your contest. If
you’re simply looking to get a lot of
likes and optins over a short period of
time, make the contest super easy. A
simple sweepstake will do, where the
visitor enters their email address to
enter. If you want to increase
engagement, encourage reviews or
create some user generated content
for your site, then perhaps a picture
contest or a video contest. Remember
the higher the barrier to entry the
less entrants, but possibly a higher
quality more targeted audience.
Make your contest easy to share! You
want it to get out to as many people
as possible, so add share links and
encourage the entrant to share the
contest for an increased chance of
winning.
Keep it short. To create excitement,
add a bit of scarcity. Make the contest
1 – 2 weeks max and let everyone
know as time is running out to enter.
You’ll have lots of frantic activity in
the last few days and a nice viral
effect!
Use a 3rd party app and ensure you
comply with the Facebook
promotional guidelines – https://
www.facebook.com/
page_guidelines.php
Have fun with it!!!
Step 6. Host webinars
I LOVE webinars! When I first started my
Facebook career way back when, I would
say that webinars were the biggest draw of
fans to my page and customers to my
business! The same is true today. With
every webinar I market, present and
replay I gather a huge new raft of fans
and potential customers.
PLUS and here’s the biggie… A webinar
means you create INSTANT RAPPORT with
your audience. If you invite people to
attend a webinar with you and you spend
an hour or so giving epic content and
chatting with your audience you will find
there is really nothing more powerful,
except perhaps to be in a room one to one
with them.
Again you can create a page tab for your
webinar registration form and market the
page. As people come to register for the
webinar, because you have an interesting
page, epic content and loads going on they
will of course like your page and engage
with your posts. Thereby building your fan
base, your engagement rates and your
subscriber database.
Step 7. Facebook ads
I couldn’t write an entire post about
increasing your fan base without Facebook
ads. Well I can’t nowadays anyway. I
remember the days when our posts were
seen by the majority of our fans!
Unfortunately this is no longer the case.
Our posts are only seen by approximately
10 – 15% of our fans so to get our
message out into the news feeds of all of
our likers, we have to pay! Whilst I would
rather get it for free, as someone who has
been in marketing for over 20 years I can
also see why FB are doing it this way and I
have to say, Facebook ads are cheaper
and more targeted than any offline
marketing techniques I have used over the
years.
So as business owners and marketers we
really shouldn’t moan too much!
I have to tell you, the ads that get us the
BEST results are page post ads. In other
words, you post a normal status update,
with a very interesting 90 character first
line, a fantastic image and a compelling
description and then use the Facebook ads
platform to target it specifically. These ads
show up on the right hand side of the
newsfeed like normal ads, but are more
descriptive and have the wonderful social
element of people liking, commenting,
sharing etc.
You can also get these ads into the
newsfeed and hence pockets (via mobile)
of your target audience by using the
power editor. I’m afraid I will have to
leave explanation of using the power
editor to another post as it really is a
subject all on it’s own. It is there and it is
very effective.
Step 8. Interesting threads
OK, we’re heading towards the home
stretch here! I have seen some great
threads over my time surfing the
Facebook landscape. But I have to tell
you, they’re few and far between. Most of
the stuff you’ll see coming down your
newsfeed is absolute drivel! Sorry posters,
but it’s true.
Much like Point 1, this leaves it wide open
for you to get in there and be original and
interesting!
An example of an interesting thread is
when it’s more focused on the customer
than your business. I saw a speed
coaching thread recently that made me go
and instantly like the page.
The host had posted – in the next 30
minutes I am going to answer all of your
questions, post NOW. He had absolutely
loads of comments and questions being
fired at him and he went through and
answered every single one. It was an
amazing thread of info. Another idea is
having a guest ‘poster’, So getting
someone well respected in your niche and
having them come to your wall for a
couple of hours to answer fan questions.
Something we used to do was at a specific
time on a specific day have a themed
event, ie., one very successful one we ran
was 60 book suggestions in 60 minutes.
We had hundreds of comments, book
suggestions and discussions that everyone
could get a lot out of. Plus of course a
whole load of new likes!
Please note to run these type of ‘wall’
events, you need to be consistent. Just
doing one won’t cut it. So only start this if
you have the resource to keep it going.
Step 9. Add a Facebook “like”
box to your blog/website
Super important and super easy! Add a
like box to your blog.
Here’s how.
Go to https://
developers.facebook.com/docs/
plugins/
Click on “Like Box”
Enter the URL of your fan page
Copy the code and paste into the
sidebar of your blog or wherever you
want it to show on your website.
People can now “like” your facebook page
from your website.
Step 10. The engagement circle
As you grow your Facebook page and your
business, you will build a customer
database or a ‘list’ as it’s known in the
online marketing world. As you create
more content and more posts and hold
more events etc, you should be emailing
your database and inviting them to come
over and like and engage with your page.
Not everyone who signs up will have liked
your page, so you need to ask them to!
Why do I need them to like my page if
they’re already in my email database Jo, I
hear you cry? The answer is you want to
be able to communicate with your
prospective audience on a multitude of
platforms. Email, Social Media, Skype,
Instant Messaging, Evernote, Drive – there
are so many more options these days.
The more channels you can disseminate
information across, the more chance you
have of getting in front of the eyes of
your target market. Remember there is a
lot of noise out there, it’s your job as a
marketer to cut through that noise and
directly impact your potential customers
with your Epic Content!
I’m sure you’ve heard this before many
times, but please remember it’s about
quality not quantity. There’s no point in
having a page with 100,000 fans if no-one
engages, gets involved or turns into a
customer! This is a business remember!
But know this, getting to your first 1000
fans is just the first step. Next you need
to turn your fans into customers, but
that’s another story coming to a blog post
near you soon…..
Now don’t just read – go out and take
action on one of these steps today! Right
NOW!
Have you ran any super successful fan
getting campaigns? If so I’d love to hear
about them! Let’s chat! Comment or leave
feedback below, I will respond to every
single post!
Thanks so much for reading! I hope this
post has been useful!
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