Posts Tagged "Facebook fan pages"

Reader Question: How to Get More Facebook Fans

Posted by on Mar 15, 2011 in Facebook, How-To, Social Media | 11 comments

Reader question:

I have 270 people on my Facebook Fan Page, how do I get more to follow me?

I’ve already done the suggest to friends button to invite the people on my profile page. I have some new friends on my profile page but I was waiting to establish a relationship with them since I have spoken to these people in years.

I was thinking of having a contest/draw for a complimentary service by asking people to invite their friends when I reach a certain amount of people and then have another contest later to continue increasing the number until I reach at least 500.

What do you think?

Response:

The process of gaining new friends, fans, followers, etc. is an interesting one and one that I get asked about a lot.  The truth is, there is no real magic formula to getting your number of fans to go up.

Think of it this way… if you walked into a networking event and just stood in the corner or at the bar, you wouldn’t get to know very many people, right?  Or, if you were delivering a seminar but you were dry, boring and the information you shared was regurgitated, you aren’t going to necessarily walk away with people who loved what you did.  People want authenticity and they want interesting.

Making friends, fans or followers on social media comes from having interesting things to say, interesting resources to share and forging relationships with the people you meet.  It also comes from the value you give to the community.

There is this perception on social media that more followers / friends / fans = success.  It’s just not the truth.  You could have 100,000 fans on your Facebook page but the real value is in knowing how many of those people listen to what you have to say, interact with you and interact with the other people you’ve attracted.

However, that being said, there are some ways that you can attract more people to you.

  • Start a blog. If you aren’t blogging yet, do so!  You can utilize the blog as a feeder system into your other outlets.  For example, you could start a blog post on your blog but have the rest of it posted as a note on your Facebook fan page which will drive people there.  Blogs allow you to give the ultimate amount of value and they never disappear so you benefit from them for a long time to come.
  • Interact in groups, pages, etc. to find other similar people. Sometimes the “if you build it, they will come” idea just doesn’t work.  Instead, you have to go out and find people to friend, fan or follow.  Once those relationships are being built, you’ll naturally find people who are ideal for your world.
  • Contests are a great idea – when done correctly (see examples at bottom of post). There is something to be said about a good Facebook fan page contest but there is even more to be said about the bad contests.  The goal here is to create something of interest that will want people to come to your site but you also don’t want to come across as saying, “I just want MORE fans!”  Yes, that is the end result but saying so might make your current “fans” think, “Well… I wonder what’s wrong with the lot of us that is here!”

After you gain new “fans”, building the relationship and having them stay a long-time “fan” is something you’ll have to work on personally and that will just take time, authenticity and a little effort.

Do you have an interesting way that you, or someone you know, has used to gain more fans on Facebook? If so, leave it as a comment so we can continue the discussion!

***

Here are some examples of Facebook fan page contests that have worked.  Thank you to my friends on Twitter for providing the references!

Also, before you do a contest, be sure to read the Facebook Promotion Guidelines!  There are some distinct rules you need to follow.  If you prefer a short cut, this blog post sums up the rules nicely.

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Facebook is Holding My Friends Hostage

Posted by on Dec 16, 2009 in Facebook, Social Media | 8 comments

I have 5,000 friends on my Facebook profile.  Facebook has a limit on your personal profile of 5,000.  I reached that limit before Facebook introduced “Fan Pages”.  Now, I have a Fan Page setup as well that I would love to replace my profile.  Why?  Well, you aren’t limited on your Fan Page as to how many fans you can have.

Since my profile is what most people find in search, people keep adding me there.  I can’t add anyone else because my profile is full.  So, I have 2,188 people in wait (as of the date of this blog post).  So, I add these people as those from my current list of 5,000 drop off.  We’re talking about adding one person every three days or so.

Here’s the killer part of this…  I could message these people and say, “Hey! I see you want to connect with me… why don’t you connect up on my fan page?” however Facebook sends me a warning after about the fifth sent message to these individuals.  They also warn that they can close your account down for sending out too many messages.

So… what do I do?

These 2,188 people obviously want to connect with me except I can’t connect back with them.  If I try to communicate with them, I run the risk of Facebook shutting my account down (oh, if they shut your account down and you haven’t appointed a second person on your fan page as administrator, kiss that page goodbye… by the way).

Facebook, why are you holding my people hostage like this?  Has anyone out there found a solution to this?

What I wish Facebook would have done was just convert profiles into fan pages in terms of how they behave.  It would have been very easy to lift the cap on the number of friends, like fan pages, and just let people connect with however many people they want.  Look at Twitter, for example, where some people have hundreds of thousands and even millions of followers.

Or, maybe Facebook could allow us to hide certain profiles in search.  Maybe you can do this already (I haven’t spent too much time looking at the new privacy settings yet) but I think an easy way to say, “Don’t show my profile but rather just my fan page” would be great.

So, anyone out there have any advice on this subject?

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Facebook Fan Pages

Posted by on Jan 6, 2009 in blog, Web & Technology | 0 comments

All around the social networking universe, people are talking about Facebook fan pages. The reason these are getting more and more highly discussed is because people like myself (and many others) are all reaching or have exceeded the 5,000 friend limit that Facebook inflicts on the Facebook universe. (I am currently sitting at 5,000 with about 200+ friend requests sitting in waiting – when someone drops off, I friend the next one in line).

In needing to find an alternative for people who want to friend me, I’ve just today (January 6, 2009) started my first ever Facebook fan page. You can check it out here.

Here’s what I’ve learned in the process…

  • Facebook pages are easy to create. The entire process took me less than thirty minutes and I now have a secondary place for people to “friend” me on Facebook.
  • You can add video, events and discussions to your fan page. This keeps the level of interaction one might expect to see on a profile page up. Doesn’t feel like you’re missing much this way!
  • There are no caps on the number of fans you might have on Facebook. This is also good for those of you (us) who reach 5,000 and want someplace for people to go after that!

So, please feel free to visit the new Facebook fan page and fan me if you wish!

Also, here’s a video from Mari Smith of Why Facebook? on how to create and find Facebook fan pages.

[tags]BSETC, Erin Blaskie, Facebook, Facebook fan page, Facebook fan pages, fan pages, internet marketing, internet marketing support, internet marketing strategy, internet marketing implementation[/tags]

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