How to grow your fanbase on Facebook
“How do I grow the fanbase so more people are engaged and have exposure to the brand?” Every Marketer asks themselves this question when they’re working to build a brand through social network sites.
First, you need to be clear on the rules for promoting a brand through Facebook. From a marketer’s perspective, we recommend reading the Facebook Promotions Guidelines. If you’re across these rules you’ll have a better chance of not getting on the wrong side of Facebook (and in turn get banned, as that wouldn’t be good for the brand you’re promoting!).
There are two main ways to get fans on Facebook:
1) Be likeable
The first way is to become a celebrity or have a well known brand people which people will actively seek out and become a fan as a way of affiliating themselves. In these categories, generally there is no issue in how to get fans. All you need to do is post regular updates and information that’s engaging to fans to keep you top of mind. This will help organically grow a fan base (as when your fans interact with your page, this interaction is spread virally to their Facebook friends). Justin Bieber is famous and has an astounding 21,849,746 Facebook fans and Gucci is a great well known brand that has 3,791,867 Facebook fans.
2) Incentivise
The second way is to have some kind of incentive to ‘like’ your brand. I know this sounds simple and is basic marketing, but there are many ways, and some very creative, to do this. Here are some ideas you could try:
• Give people a discount or a prize for being a fan on Facebook. They could be weekly draws, like: ‘Mention the special Facebook code when you come in store’ etc.
• Give them something special to engage with once they have liked you. For example, once you become a fan of Barbie on Facebook, you can shop at the exclusive pop-up store in NYC.
• If you have a specific product or service, now is the time to engage with your target market with helpful information, feedback or news from the industry.
A bit of coding goes a long way
Customise a tab in Facebook to act like a landing page where you can create a call to action, sell something or create some intrigue. You can be really creative with this page as it acts a little like a mini website on Facebook and only requires some simple coding.
Engagment ads on Facebook
At Brio Group we have had a lot of success with Facebook advertising. It can be really specific and you can limit your spend with a pay per 1000 impressions or pay per click (like AdWords). It’s a great way to build awareness to your new product or service, or to build up fans for your brand or product before you launch. If done well this can be one of the most cost effective advertising strategies you will do. I always advise that when advertising on Facebook remember people are expecting something for FREE or really cheap so promote discounts, giveaways, tell your fans about your competition, etc. Then make sure to link to your customised landing page where there are more details, or a custom tab on your Facebook Page – never just sent them to the Facebook wall.
Appoint a Facebook account manager
My final tip is to get an account manager if you’re really serious with your Facebook Advertising. They will be only too happy to help you work with Facebook to approve competitions, create effective ads and help you get the most of the latest developments from Facebook.
Yours in Facebook marketing,
Belinda
