Introduction
Do you have a Facebook page then already? You may have created a page and now you are looking for ways to use it effectively.
When you’re running a business, having a social media presence is an essential part of your marketing strategy. Gone are the days when social media was still being considered as a new medium for advertising.
It is a known fact that having a social media presence not only aides in your growth but also helps to define your brand and broadcast your message. Using Facebook is a ‘must have’ for the majority of businesses out there now.
If your businesses is active on popular sites like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram it is looked upon as more credible, legitimate and as a customer-centric business. On the other hand, it’s not always so easy to get people to like your pages or profiles, particularly if you have just recently started a Facebook business page, sometimes referred to as a fan page.
While some people actually end up paying for the likes on their pages, you don’t have to resort to wasting your money this way. And come to think of it, these paid likes may not be real people interested in your product or service. Advertising on Facebook is another story for another day.
The following are a few ways through which you can get more likes on your Facebook page without costing a penny:
Hold Timeline Contests on your Facebook Page
One thing that you’ll find people love is giveaways or a chance to enter into a competition to win something. With the help of a timeline contest, you can entice people to enter a competition for a chance to win a prize on your Facebook Page. And you can run these timeline contests for free and without setting up a Facebook app – not one of my favourite things to do, especially late at night.
Keep in mind that you have to offer something worth entering. If the prize isn’t attractive enough, people wouldn’t be interested enough to enter. I am thinking of running a contest on my Wicked Spider Facebook account that involves giving entrants the chance to win a new website. Other ideas I have seen that seem to work well are gift vouchers, discount codes and free products.
You won’t be surprised to know that Facebook have a few rules for contests:
- You need some rules of your own. Nothing complicated though but just remember to make things clear for your audience. This is stop any disputes afterwards.
- A disclaimer stating that your contest is not endorsed, administered or associated with Facebook
- You must not use personal timelines and friend connections to spread the word about your contest. So, you can’t post things like “tag your friends in this post to enter” or “share on your friend’s Timeline to get additional entries”.
Read the full set of rules now and see how you can use them to build your Facebook page.
Post Engaging and Relevant Content on your Page
A Facebook page that always keeps posting about its own products or services 24/7 is one that begins to feel very automated and fake. Add a personal touch by posting content that is not only engaging but also relevant to what is going on.
Whether it’s the summer holidays, Christmas or Black Friday, users will respond more when you post something fun and send out a wish or a greeting. People respond well towards businesses like that, and you should find that the like count grows on those days. So, I am now going to search Google for a list of national celebrations and add them to my social media calendar.
From recent experiments on my own on Facebook page I can see that images get more reach and engagement than text alone and videos are at the top of the pile when it comes to engaging and relevant content. And if you include visual content that has a person in then you should see that post boom. I recently did a test of this theory on a client’s Facebook page. 2 images were posted within a short time of each other and the one I created that included an image of a woman received 5 times more reach that the image without a person in.
Be Active
Many people use a Facebook for business’s social media page as a customer service platform. This is one reason why you will need to ensure you are as active as possible on your business page. More people tend to get online and rant about their bad experience than call customer service and deal with a customer service representative. With social media, all one has to do is post something and it’s there. This is why the faster you get the issues resolved, the better your services appear.
And be aware that Facebook will give your page a boost if your response time to messages is fast and please do actually reply to all messages.
The trick to getting people to like your Facebook page is consistency – much like many other things in life. Benjamin Disraeli said:
The secret of success is consistency of purpose
And it is worth noting that Facebook will “punish” your page if you ask for likes.
And the point of all of this?
To get more likes on your Facebook page, build your reputation and attract more customers in the future.
