Social media has made it easier than ever to expose your brand to the online masses. However, pushing content and driving traffic to your blog and website can be a challenge. And the next step, brand recognition and consumer promotion, are an even bigger hurdle to tackle. Whether we’re talking about customer referrals, rating systems or mass brand acknowledgment, the importance of marketing your business and attracting more and more traffic to your website is crucial to success.
As Facebook continues to be a catalyst in the online marketing community, more and more businesses have begun to take advantage of its massive number of followers and started to reach out to them. The best way for businesses to do this is to create a Facebook fan page and start seeking out fans. Facebook actually just shook things up a bit and changed the way the Facebook fan pages work, recently switching the “Become a Fan” of a page option to now encouraging people to “Like” a page. People are still technically “fans” of a Facebook page, however, the terminology is different.
Of course, everyone wants fans, especially if it means promoting your brand. Easier said than done, right? After much trial and error, we’ve compiled a list of helpful tips to growing your fan base and promoting your fan page, let us know if we’re missing any.
* Ask your friends – if you are starting from ground zero and have absolutely zero fans start at the roots by asking your friends to be fans.
* Get multiple influential users to invite all their friends – enlist the help of some big-game users to get their friends interested.
* Use keywords – optimize your posts, page and URL for popular keywords.
* Leverage the entire left side of the page by installing a 200px by 600px default picture. Not using this entire space is like throwing away prime real estate on your fan page- space that every user sees when they come to your page.
* FBML - When directing potential fans to your Facebook fan page, make use of facebook markup language to create an additional, customizable tab for fans to land on, don’t just send them to the fan page wall!
* Leverage external traffic streams/subscriber bases – take advantage of all your online communities and take a call to action to join your fan page.
* Facebook like box – add to your website like the one you see on the righthand side of this page (check out the previous blog – “How to Add a Facebook Like Box to Your Website” for additional help).
* Facebook ads – use the “promote” tab in the admin settings and post demographically targeted advertisements on your fan page.
* Facebook like button wordpress plugin – allows users to “like” your blogs and posts without being fans, updating their profile and stream to show that they liked your content and driving traffic to your fan page.
* Facebook photo tagging – ask fans to tag photos of non-fans and post them to the fan page.
* Use notes and @replies – tag people and fan pages in notes and status updates using the @ button before their name, they can then click on the name and go straight to that person or page.
* Use other social media venues such as Twitter, LinkedIn or even YouTube to promote your Facebook fan page.
* Encourage comments – ask questions and take polls to encourage friends and fans to participate in discussions.
* Incentives - frequently make special announcements and offers to fans ONLY and get users interested.
* Link to popular sites – they may link you back, which can create link building and increase your SEO.
* Post regularly – maintain your fan page and update your content often to avoid “unlikes,” or bored fans.
There are a myriad of tips to help get your Facebook fan page base growing exponentially. Become a fan of Financial Social Media on Facebook by clicking the ‘Like” button over on the right. By doing so you’ll receive the latest tips and trends in regards to social media.
Amy McIlwain
@amymcilwain
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