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Posts Tagged ‘Facebook fans’

3 Ways to Increase Your Facebook Page’s Visibility

April 10th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

EdgeRank, Facebook’s algorithm for deciding what content appears in users’s news feeds, is making it more challenging than ever to be sure your content is seen by fans. If you’ve noticed a decrease in Facebook page activity lately, EdgeRank may be the culprit. Here are some tips I found to keep EdgeRank from edging you out of news feeds.

1. Build super fans so your audience comes to you.

When you turn regular fans into super fans, your community will seek you out by visiting your page if they don’t see your content in their news feeds. To do this, you must consistently provide excellent content that your fans crave. Pay attention to the types of content getting the most traction. Which posts inspire likes and comments, and during what times of the day are you getting the best results?

Find the time of day with the most interaction, and stick to a consistent posting schedule so fans will know when to expect your daily content. The key is to make your content so great that fans will miss you if it’s gone.

2. Ask your audience to create a favorite pages list.

If you are providing useful content and building relationships, fans will want to stay in touch with you. Let them know about EdgeRank and that you want to remain on their news feed to provide them with the great information they’ve liked you for.

One way fans can be sure to stay in contact with you is by building a favorite pages list. This list is an easy way to check out all your favorite pages’ updates in one place.

To create a list, go to your Facebook Home page. On the left sidebar, click on More beside the Friends section. Click on Create List in the top right, and begin making your favorite pages list. Here is a step-by-step guide from Facebook for adding to and creating lists. Share this information with your fans, and ask them to create a list including your organization’s page.

3. Include your personal profile in your marketing strategy.

Personal status updates are winning out over business page updates, so leveraging your personal profile may be a tactic you’d like to try. To use this tip, you need to be very careful because Facebook terms state that you can’t use a personal profile for commercial gain (see here for more information). However, there is nothing stopping you from talking about your page posts on your personal profile. For example, if you’ve just posted a new blog post, you can share it with a link as a personal status update. Or, you can share information about an event where you will be presenting.

Facebook’s privacy controls have improved tremendously lately, so you can adjust yours according to your preferences. The key is to ask your page fans to subscribe to your personal updates so they can see them in their news feeds. When fans subscribe to your public posts, they can see these posts without becoming your friend. This feature is similar to following someone on Twitter. You can learn more about subscribing here. Subscribing to your personal posts will give fans that extra personalization they seek on social media.

Have you noticed a drop-off in Facebook page participation? Try these tips, and let us know how they worked for you.

Image courtesy of creative design agency Arrae

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Tags: EdgeRank, Facebook, Facebook fans, Facebook page, Marketing, social media
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | 2 Comments »

What Small Businesses Can Learn From Big Companies on Facebook

January 31st, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

Just because you’re a small business doesn’t mean you can’t have a huge impact on Facebook. The social network has enabled small businesses to stand side-by-side with large companies to grab customers’ attention and interact with them online.

Even if your marketing department is small, or even if you’re a company of one, you can still learn a lot from the big business approach to Facebook. Try these four ideas for running Facebook campaigns get big results, regardless of your company’s size.

Plan for success

One of the major reasons big companies succeed on Facebook is that they plan. Don’t make the mistake many small businesses do and launch a Facebook page just because everyone else has one. Do as the big companies do, and set goals and strategies for your efforts online.

Think about what you’d like to get from your Facebook activities. Do you want to drive more traffic to your online store? Are you hoping to build your newsletter list? Or, maybe you want to encourage repeat business and brand loyalty? Whatever your goals are, state them clearly, and create a strategy that will get you there.

Interact with your fans

Often, the most successful Facebook pages are those teeming with interaction. This is where big companies have a major advantage, simply because they’re staffed to keep the community active.

To compete with larger businesses, you need to go beyond static content (bio, a couple of pictures, and links to your website), and fill your page with content that engages the community. Creating a custom tab enables you to offer fun stuff on Facebook, such as contests and virtual gifts.

But don’t think you have to employ a pricey designer or know how to code to get the same eye-catching and interactive custom tabs big companies have. A custom tab app, like the one offered by ShortStack, can help you create tabs with the same functionality for an affordable price.

Be there for your fans

Big businesses know that social media provides a direct connection with their individual customers, so they hire community managers to communicate with customers on a full-time basis.

Even if you can’t hire someone to tend to Facebook full-time, you still need to check in more than sporadically to build a community. Try working social media interaction into your routine, being sure to respond to questions or comments on your page at least every day. You can tag-team Facebook page management among several staff members to be sure you’re covered, and you can hire responsible interns to help with social media management. Just be sure not to neglect your customers online – if you don’t answer their questions, someone else will!

Take advantage of your smaller size

Being a small company means you’re nimbler and more flexible than your larger competitors. For example, smaller businesses have the advantage of moving quickly to gather information from their community. If you want to know what customers think of your newest product, you can create a Facebook poll or simply ask them to post suggestions to your wall – and you can do this without the bureaucratic hierarchy that slows bigger companies down.

Or, maybe you want to scan Facebook for general feedback, responding to customer complaints and compliments. Because you’re the owner, you can make decisions like this and reply in real time.

Another example of leveraging your smaller size is offering deals to your community when you need to. If you need to clear inventory quickly, or you want to be sure your venue is filled tonight, you can offer great deals to your Facebook fans right now. Being a small business means you can avoid the lethargic corporate decision-making process and do what’s right for your business in a flexible way.

Have you noticed other big-business Facebook tactics that can be scaled to fit a smaller company? Talk to us in the comments section below!

Image courtesy of creative design agency Arrae

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Tags: engagement, Facebook, Facebook fans, Marketing, social media
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | 2 Comments »

9 Ways to Increase Your Facebook Page’s Fan Base

January 24th, 2011 :: Monika Jansen

I have become absolutely obsessed with using social media properly this year. Instead of just pushing out information, I am going to do what I am supposed to do: engage on social media. After all, social media begins with the word “social.” If you’re not chatting it up on Twitter or Facebook, why bother? You’re just being anti-social. And I am definitely not anti-social in real life.

My biggest stumbling block, personally, is increasing the number of fans on my company’s Facebook page. So my interns and I have been researching it. As we have found, there’s lots of information out there on using Facebook, but not a lot on increasing your fan base. (Mari Smith has been a great source.) The following is what we found. Some suggestions are simple, some require a little more effort, but all seem to be worth doing:

Let’s start with the obvious. If you haven’t already, suggest your fan page to your friends on Facebook.
Another obvious: In your e-mail signature, add a link to your Facebook page (and your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, too!).
Offer incentives to new Facebook fans, like a special discount or e-book. A recent survey conducted by Co-Tweet and Exact Target found that 40 percent of people like a brand on Facebook to receive discounts. Incentivized like pages have a 200-300 percent higher click-to-fan conversion rates than regular landing pages.
Record and upload a short video for your Facebook landing page (I’d like to put this on my Welcome tab), explaining what your fan page is about and who it’s for.
On your personal Facebook profile, add a link to your fan page. Here’s how Mari Smith said it can be done: “Change your employer to be your actual fan page (recommended!). This part can be tricky! If the dropdown menu does not display your fan page to select from, the easiest way is to type in the full URL of your fan page. Or, if that doesn’t work, here is a step-by-step tutorial on how to do this. See also this helpful thread and screenshot.”
Find your customers on Facebook with Flowtown, a popular social media tool that helps you learn what your customers are doing and saying on specific social platforms (like Facebook). If they use Facebook a lot, Flowtown will connect you to them. [Update: On January 26, we learned that Flowtown is not accepting new customers for a few weeks. Read more here.]
Create a fan box for your website and blog. Here’s how: Click “Edit Page Link” on the top left side of your page. Then click “Get Your Badge.” Customize your badge and place it on your blog or website for additional exposure to your fan page.
Ask Internet marketers in your industry or niche to share your page with their friends since you will most likely have the same types of readers (then do the same for them).
If you don’t belong to groups on LinkedIn (at all, or that are active), look for industry-specific groups on Facebook, some of which could have thousands of fans. If you become active in a group (and build thought leadership), other members will get to know you and hopefully they will become a fan of your page.