If you’re operating your very own small business online, having a website with a blog isn’t just going to get you any success if you’re not leveraging your social media marketing on any of these two giant sites like Facebook and Twitter.

I’m sure you may ask? Is that really important for your business? Well, the answer is yes!

If you’re interested to find out how to increase your Twitter followers, here are some of the great tips that can help you to do so.

But in today’s article, I’m going to talk about: Why Do You Really Need To Set Up A Facebook Fan Page?

Facebook has over 1.49 billion of monthly active users.

Well, believe it or not, Facebook is one of the biggest social media network in the world with over 1.49 billion monthly active users and 968 million daily users. I can’t imagine there’s any good reason for not using Facebook to market your business. If you’re not doing this, most likely your competitors will.

Not convincing enough. Well, let’s us look at some of the reasons as to why having a Facebook fan page is really important to your business? What are some of the real benefits that it can really bring you?

• Stay connect with your targeted audience – Well, you probably have heard about this a gazillion times! But how? As you can see from the statistics above, it clearly shows that many people are actually spending more time on Facebook and the number is still growing exponentially each day. And that pretty much summed up as to why there are many popular brands out there that have their own Facebook fan pages in order to stay connected with their own audience. So that means, even if you are just operating a small business online, you can still get to gain the maximum exposure (just like some of the bigger brand names) you need for your business branding. And through such exposure, you will be able to get a more direct feedback and comment from your targeted audience.
• Give a more personal touch to your business – Just like many other small businesses, competing with bigger brand names can be quite disheartening at times. So to all small business owners out there, it is always a good choice to have your own Facebook fan pages because not only will it give you a more personalised approach, but it will also create a more memorable and attractive branding experience to all your targeted audience. This way you are more likely to grow a more loyal fan base. And once you can achieved that, it means that the bigger the fan base, the higher chances of you getting your ROI.
• Make your Facebook post go viral – This has proven to be one of the most effective strategies of getting your Facebook post to go viral. Many bigger brands have seen to be taking advantage of creating some funny or creative videos and so when they shared it on their Facebook page, they hope that those videos will go viral on its own. And what do you get when your Facebook post go viral? It’s brand recognition! This is incredibly effective if you’re setting up a new business or launching a new product. That explains why in recent years, there are so many companies are trying their luck to see if they can actually produce something that can go viral.

Well, enough said of why you really need to have a Facebook fan page. Let’s move on to look at what are some of the ways to effectively grow your Facebook fan base.

Here Are Some Of The Ways To Grow Your Facebook Fan Base

1. Ask Friends, Family And Employees To Like Your Page

Invite all your friends, family, and employees to like your page.

If you’ve just set up a Facebook business page, then getting those first few hundred Likes can be a bit of a challenge. An easy way to create a foundation on which to build your fan base on is by simply asking all of your friends, family members and employees to like your page. Most of them will be more than happy to help you out (unless you don’t treat your employees well – so be sure to treat them well!). Once they like your page, there will be a much better chance that their Facebook friends will see the content that you post to your Facebook page.

2. Place A Like Box On Your Company Website

Not only does placing a Like box on your website instantly inform visitors that your business has a Facebook page, but it makes it easy for them to follow you. Instead of having to search for you on Facebook, they can just follow you immediately with the click of a button without having to leave your website. This is very effective as well because it prevents visitors from forgetting to visit your Facebook page in order to follow you after exploring your website. Be sure to place Like boxes on each page of your website.

Place a Like box on your company website.

3. Encourage Followers On Other Social Channels To Follow You On Facebook

Although I said that if you were to choose one social channel that it should be Facebook, that doesn’t mean that Facebook should be the only social channel you use. There are lots of great options out there, such as Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and more. What you should remember is that your followers are not the same on every channel, which means that you should encourage followers on your other social media accounts to follow you on Facebook as well.

4. Add links to your Facebook page on your emails

There’s no guarantee that the leads that you’ve captured are also following you on Facebook. Even if they are reading your emails, they may not have bothered to check Facebook for your business page. Include links to your Facebook page in every email signature that you send out to inform and remind your email recipients that you have a Facebook page that they can like.

Just like the one below. This email signature is simple, clean and creatively done.

Add a Facebook link or icon in your email signature.

5. Hold Facebook Contests

A Facebook contest, whether it’s a sweepstakes or a full-blown competition, is a fantastic way to increase the exposure of your brand and to grow your follower base. People love participating in contests, especially if the prizes are well worth their time.

A very good example would be one of the Subway’s contest that went viral because of its amazing prizes.

Subway’s contest gone viral – look at how many likes they’ve got!

Besides, I would also like to recommend holding a photo contest in which users get to vote on the results – this way new followers will get to upload or to post their submission to their timeline in an attempt to garner votes from their friends. Thereby it’s like you’re getting some free advertising for your contest. But in order for them to participate, ask the users to follow or like your business page first and make that as part of the contest requirements.

Anyway, this is just a recommendation, however, it is really up to you to decide what kind of contest works best for your marketing campaign and most importantly, you’ve to remember that the prizes offered should only be appealed to your targeted audience and not to the general audience. This is to ensure that the audience who participated are more targeted and more likely to buy something from you in future.

6. Add A Like Us On Facebook Link To Your Order Confirmation Pages

Once a customer has purchased a product or service from your eCommerce site, you should be sending them a thank you confirmation page. Make sure that you include a Like Us link to your Facebook page on this message. They are more likely to follow you on Facebook since they already trust you enough to have made a purchase.

Just like how Marshall Fridge did it – it’s about time to start bragging!

Source: JBi Digital Agency

7. Use An Outdoor or An In-Store Signs To Promote Your Facebook Page

If you have a physical location for your business, then set up a small sign near the entrance or checkout counter of your store. This is also a great way to promote your Facebook page without having to spend a huge chunk of money.

Here are some of the great examples of using creative signages to promote your Facebook fan page.

Example 1:

Just like how Cafe Tenango did it to promote their little cafe!

Example 2:

Become a Dan’s Market Facebook fan and you will get to see exclusive deals for some BIGGER savings!

Besides, you should really include a QR code as well. It is actually a two-dimensional code which can be read by a QR scanners or some smartphones. Having a QR code on your sign helps to direct customers to your Facebook page as well as the URL. Consider offering an incentive on your sign as well – such as receiving a discount code that they can use when they check out in your store.

Example 3:

Another great way to drive higher traffic to your Facebook page is by using QR code.

8. Add A Facebook URL To Your Business Cards

If you do a lot of networking offline, then adding the URL for your company Facebook page to your business card is a good idea. If you make a good impression on the people that you hand your business card too, they’ll be more likely to actually look at it, which means there’s a chance that they’ll visit any URLs that you’ve listed on your card.

A great way to promote your business if you’re doing lots of networking offline.

9. Engage With Other Users or Businesses On Facebook

Believe it or not, but a lot of people forget that the point of social media is to be social. By being social, such as by commenting on the posts of other companies and consumers, you’ll be increasing your Facebook presence and helping to bring exposure to your brand. Like and share other content and post comments on other pages as well as in Facebook Groups. Just make sure that when you post a comment that it is of value to the people you are engaging with and relevant to their conversation, otherwise you may come across as being overly promotional. Don’t use this strategy to ask for Likes, instead, build credibility and exposure and the Likes will follow.

10. Lock Content

If you are producing content that you know people would want to read, such as an in-depth guide or tutorial, then one option is to tease readers by allowing them to read the introduction and then locking the rest of the content. You can then require that they like your Facebook page in order to unlock the rest of the content.

Ask politely so that you will be granted with some support.

Source: WPExplorer

However, don’t do this with all of your content, such as your regular blog posts. This will cause you to lose possible leads. This should only be done for special pieces of content that are long and in-depth – your shorter blog posts should be free to read so show readers that your content is valuable and of high quality.

11. Cross Promote With Other Businesses

Build a relationship with other businesses within your industry (that aren’t direct competition, of course). You can cross promote your Facebook business pages in order to draw likes from each other’s respective audiences. For example, if your company manufacturers golf balls, you can cross promote with a company that sells golf clubs. This is a great way to get exposure from a similar audience, thereby increasing the chances of boosting your Likes.

12. Provide Incentives For Liking You

Remember that offering incentives for people to like your Facebook fan page is one of the easiest way to do so – in fact is more like a no-brainer kind of effort. However, you may want to do this thoughtfully because using any kind of cool gadget stuff such as iPad or some smartphones will definitely get you a huge lots of fans, but bear in mind that they are not the one who is going to make any purchase from you in future.

So, if your intention is to sell any of your services or products on your website, then providing incentives such as coupon codes or special discounts for anyone that likes your Facebook page can be really effective. Other incentives could include free content, like eBooks, or a free gift of some sort.

13. Check Facebook Insights Regularly

Facebook Insights is an analytics tool that will provide you with detailed metrics about who your audience are and also the performance of your Facebook posts. It will provide you with metrics that include reach, the number of users that have clicked your posts, the number of users that have engaged in some way (via shares, likes or comments) and more.

This overview gives you a good glance about your page.

Just like how the overview tab above shows, it really gives you an overall view about your new page likes, post reach, and also the engagement for the past one week.

Learn more about your fans – who they are.

Besides, you will also be able to know who are some of your audience – like the gender, country they’re from and also the language that they speak. So, that means if you wish to come up with any new marketing campaign for your next product launching, you will be able to know what kind of messages and posts that can attract or appeal to your targeted audience.

Apart from that, you can also use Facebook insight to look at the performance for all your blog posts. That way you will be able to know which posts are some of the popular ones and which ones are not. In other words, Facebook Insights allow you to break down your Facebook’s actions, in order to understand what works and what doesn’t. This, in turn, will give you a chance to adjust your content ideation and strategy accordingly so that you will be able to reach out or engage with more users in future.

This will give you a pretty good insight on the performance of your blog posts.

Source: Cloud Peep

14. Use Facebook Graph Search

Facebook Graph Search, just like Google search, it is a semantic search engine that will return results based on the context of your search terms. Take a good look at the example below.

Use Facebook Graph Search for better research, insight, and discovery.

For instance, when I search for “Taylor Swift,” not only will I get all the results and updates about Taylor Swift from all my friends, but I do get to see what other posts that have been posted by the general public.

Facebook Graph Search is now able to return results based on your search terms.

Just like how I get to know about her latest earning per day, without having to search for her news on Google. Can you see how convenient it is? Oops, I’m sorry. Let’s get back to the topic instead of me keeps on talking about Taylor. Well, my point is you can really take advantage of using the Facebook Graph Search to eye on your competitors.

So to all small business owners out there, it is highly recommended that you use this Facebook Graph Search to do a little research on any successful campaigns that your competitors have rolled out previously and implement the same kind of strategies that they use to engage with their audience. That way, you can ensure that your marketing campaign can be rolled out successfully just like how your competitors or some bigger brand names did it.

15. Use Video Or Gif

Generally, Internet users love video – which is why YouTube is such a huge platform. It’s also why you should be posting more videos to your Facebook page in order to increase your reach. According to recent studies, video has now surpassed images in terms of reach on Facebook. This is because videos usually contain much more content than a single image, making it more shareable.

Besides that, there is another good news. A very good example would be the one from Social Media Examiner – We can now use Gif in all Facebook’s pages.

16. Join Industry Facebook Groups

Finding Groups that are relevant to your brand is an excellent way to find users that are part of your target audience but that may be wary of liking a brand’s page. By contributing to the discussions being held within these Groups in a meaningful way (meaning, don’t just promote your brand), you can earn the trust of potential leads.

Join in some industry Facebook group for some discussions.

Just like the one above – Inbound.org, it is a place where most inbound marketers will get together to share their knowledge and experiences so that everyone get a chance to learn from each other. Bear in mind that, joining in to some of this discussion may gain you some new followers to your Facebook page. So, depending on your business, you can really gain some new fans by just joining to some of these industry group’s discussions.

Always remember that building your Facebook fan base is not just about popularity. The more fans you have, the more people you’ll be able to reach with your content and the more people you’ll be able to engage with. Your Facebook fans are all potential leads, after all. Be sure to use these tips in order to get more Facebook users to like your business page and to grow your fans.

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We did the research on the 6 most popular social media platforms so you don’t have to!
• Read the detailed overview.
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Updated: 19 April 2024

About Winnie

Winnie is an aspiring copywriter & internet marketer in the vast world of digital marketing. She's as curious as she can be; constantly hunting for answers to her questions, never saying no to new experiences. When she's not spending her time typing up a storm, she is at home keeping up with her never-ending movie marathon & books.

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