Grow your Facebook Fan base and keep them engaged!

With more than  750 million active users spending over 700 billion minutes of their time on it every month, Facebook isn’t the future. Its what’s important right now! Here’s our Rocket Powered guide for getting the most out of it for your business.

3 Milestones when Growing your Facebook

1) Blast off to 25 Fans

Everyone needs to start somewhere and getting to 25 fans is a significant milestone for every company. Once you’ve reached 25 fans, facebook allows you to set a vanity URL

Ours is - http://www.facebook.com/rocketpowered

Having a URL specific to your business is really important as it makes your facebook page much easier to promote.

The best way to reach the 25 fan milestone is to send a message to your friends on Facebook asking them to like your page. Don’t forget to include a link. Try something like…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once you get your 25 fans, remember to claim your new vanity URL at facebook.com/username

2) On a mission to get 100 Fans

When you reach 100 fans you will no longer be able to change the name of your Facebook Page — so make sure that you’re 100% happy with the one you have.

The best way to get to the 100 fan mark is to use your existing network. Announce your new vanity URL to your friends via a wall post on Facebook. Ask your friends to do 3 quick things to help:

1. Like your page – if they haven’t already,
2. Like your wall post and
3. Share your new page by writing a post themselves.

Say something like – I’ve just gotten a fab new username for my Facebook Page. Please help me grow the page by doing 3 quick things: (1) like the page, (2) like this wall post and (3) share this page with a Facebook update that says: “Take a look at my friend’s new fan page, http://www.facebook.com/rocketpowered, for tips on how to get the most out of your website”

3) 1000 Fans and Beyond

Now your fan base is really growing! Having over 1000 fans shows prospective customers that you have a strong fan base on Facebook. It also gives you a large base of people to reach when you need to announce a sale, drive new sales, or just to interact with.

There’s no real short cuts to get to 1000 fans, is to take a slow growth strategy using the places you’re already getting others attention.

If you have a website, make sure , they are plenty of links back to your facebook.

Email everyone you can asking them to like you on facebook.

What you do is entirely up to you and will be different for every business. Make it personal to you but think about places where you are already getting attention from people and where you could ask them to become your fan on Facebook!

Share Quality, Relevant Content – Daily

Now you’ve got your fans you need to get them engaged.

There are two main ways to do this by

1)      Sharing quality, relevant content

2)      Inciting comments.

How Often Should You Post?

Usually with fan pages there is correlation between frequency of posts and number of fans. Frequency is king, but there’s a fine balance and posting too often will just ultimately end up annoying your fans.

If you’re just starting out with your fan page then aim for one post per day and increase from there. Mix up the types of posts to keep people interested.

By regularly posting every day fans will remember to check out your page habitually.

Its really a matter of trial and error but soon you’ll find the right rhythm. Better to start with one post a day than to overdo it and have your wall filled with only your own posts.

Also, keep in mind “high traffic windows” when the majortiy of your fans will be online, whether thats lunch time or even last thing in the day so fans will see it as the first thing when the log in after work.

What to Post

We recommend a mix of your own thoughts, breaking news, useful tips, tools, resources and links from other sites in your industry and related industries. Make everything as fun and interesting as possible and know who you are targeting your posts at.

Most people will come back to your fan page if there’s a real sense of community. It’s important to be open, inviting, warm, friendly and personable.

What can I post?

Text

A text post is your standard status update. You get 420 characters in the publisher to say what you want. Write interesting quotes. Ask fans for their opinion. Share ideas. The possibilities really are endless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video

Adding videos is another great way to get fans engaged.

Ideas for video posts include

• Videos of presentations you have done
• Videos relating to your industry
• Testimonials
• You can even create your own video about one of your services
• Or just add a fun youtube video you think that your fans would find interesting

Photos

Upload relevant pictures and be sure to encourage your fans to upload photos anytime they wish. Competitions are a great way to do this have a photo of the week from fans. Set them a challenge maybe you have a cake shop and you want fans to send in their own creations.  Each time your fans upload a photo, the thumbnail goes onto their profile wall and out into the news feeds of their friends so extra free advertisement for your page.

Other picture ideas include.

• Take staff pictures and have a staff photos album
• Photographs of your premises
• Pictures of anything interesting you see
• Photos from presentations and events you have been to.
• Pictures of Company vans
• Anything that people might associate with you or your company is great.
• Fun pictures work well too. Maybe you have done something for charity?! Get these pictures up!

Make sure the photo caption is something interesting too

Links

You can add links to any interesting content you see. Everytime you post a link in a Facebook displays a preview of it.

Events

You can quickly create events for any virtual or live event you have coming up. Fans can easily RSVP, as a regular Event page is created when you publish the event. Perhaps your doing some fund raising at your offices? Or doing a presentation. Events work really well and creating the sense of community amongst fans.

@ tags

You can tag any friend, any fan page you’ve joined, any group you’re a member of and any event you’ve RSVPed to attend in a post.

Use the @ tagging strategicallyand your post will show up on your friends’ walls and other fan pages’ walls per the tag. (Just type the @ symbol in the publisher and the first letter or two of who/what you want to tag and a list drops down for you to select from.)

Questions

Facebook allows you to ask your fans questions with the option for them to choose their answer from a poll. Questions get a really great response and you can ask your clients anything! One of our clients Rossington Hall recently asked fans to choose their favourite wallpaper to be used in one of the new rooms.

 

 

 

 

 

Incite Comments

Facebook is all about getting feedback. If the content you are adding to your site is really interesting your fans will automatically want to add their comments. To help encourage people to comment …

• Try ending status updates with a question.
• Add your own comments as needed to get the ball rolling.
• Always reply to fans comments
• Write comments on other company’s fan pages – they may return the favor
• Do your best to respond to fan questions as promptly as possible.

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