I always have the love-hate relationship with Facebook. As a social media marketer, the competitions just get harder when there are thousands of competitors (within the same niche) who are trying insanely hard to gain the attention of potential customers.
And this reminds me of the recent business trip to Shanghai, China. China has a population of 1.357 billion and is growing as we speak. Even better, the figures are going to spike next year once China abolishes the single child policy. With the enormous number of people in China, competition is stiffer than stiff. It was more towards the ‘make it or break it’ type of scenario.
And the same goes to Facebook marketing.
The right strategies are going to make Facebook work wonder for you. Take a look at Amy Porterfield who uses Facebook like a queen. Whatever she is doing, it is doing it right. The fact remains the same. You need the right strategy and one of the strategies involves having building loyal fans.
In today’s post, let’s discover how you can build loyal fans in the shortest time period, shall we?
How To Gain Loyal Followers On Facebook Pages?
Step 1: Aim for milestones
You probably know the basics of starting a Facebook Page and therefore, I’m going to leave that out. What you need to do as your first step is to aim for the milestones.
Facebook constantly reminds you that you are xx numbers away from reaching the goal. The first 100, 500, 1,000 etc — you get the point.
Without milestone, you are literally running blindly and feeling lost will just kick in within months.
Step 2: Getting the concept right
The concept of making Facebook work for you is very simple. It all boils down to:
Visitors > New Fans > Feed them with the information they are looking for
In visitors, you need to find ways to get more visitors to see/view/check out your Facebook page. This can be a tedious job but trust me, it is 100% worthwhile. Leveraging the Friday Facebook fan page is extremely powerful and it a great way to get more fans without spending a dime in Facebook ads.
Once that is done, focus on your fans and this means that you need to give them what they are looking for. In this case, you want to be their problem solver and not anything else.
The concept must work this way and there are absolutely no two ways around this. Getting the wrong concept will just give you fruitless results.
Step 3: Have a strategy (or strategies)
Alright, you have just hit the 10,000 fans on your Facebook page. Job’s done, right?
Not really.
Your strategy must always involve building more fans and keeping the current ones happy (or satisfied). So, how can you achieve this?
Provide value, give more value and focus in providing timely information at the right time.
With the competitions in the air, there will be thousands of others who are providing the same information as you do. So, what makes you different from the rest would be the methodology of delivering the information.
Take a moment to think about it. Would you be posting:
- A short tutorial on a Facebook page?
- A video on Facebook?
- Or just a short description and a link back to your blog on Facebook?
Step 4: Invite your fans to invite others
Word of mouth marketing is powerful and it really skyrocket the number of fans you have on your Facebook page.
Once in a while, get your fans to invite others (like minded people) to like your Facebook page. Surely, they would have at least a couple of friends who would appreciate the content you are sharing on Facebook.
Most of the time, we (marketers) are afraid that we will lose the hard-earned fans because of hard selling.
But have your ever considered that if you are using the right strategy to convey ‘the message’ that contains the invitation, it could go a long way?
A great and simple way is to use the contest to encourage more fan building in a short time period.
Step 5: Don’t promote yourself — too much
Your Facebook page is yours and you have the right to do anything with it. However, it doesn’t mean that you need to constantly share your personal links, products or services.
Instead, make it a point to promote the content of others. At the end of the day, have a healthy mixed of your posting strategy. Here’s mine for exploratory purposes:
- Daily post: 10
- Images: 5 posts (quotes, motivational, personal)
- Links: 3 posts (personal, informative links)
- Questions or Status updates: 2 posts (random questions or status updates)
As you can see above, the mix above allows you to constantly keep your Facebook fans engaged while keeping a balanced mixture of information to ensure that you are not overly promoting yourself.
Need an easier strategy? Try the 1:5 ratio where 1 is for yourself the promotional link and 5 is for promoting others / providing value.
Step 6: “Thank you” goes a long way
Believe it or not, a simple “thank you” goes a long, long way.
Let’s be honest, when was the last time you thanked your Facebook fans for leaving a comment or sharing?
When you thank your fans, it shows that you care for them. Facebook is a social platform and while it is extremely powerful for business, you can easily leverage it for socializing or networking as well.
Thanking your fans allows you to build a relationship with them while boosting the chance for them to further interact with you.
Conclusion
Building a fan base on Facebook is really straight forward. What makes it extremely challenging is that it requires a lot of time and passion — and in business, we do not have the leisure of time.
Need a little boost to keep you on your toes when building loyal Facebook fans? According to this post, up to 96% of Facebook fans never revisit your page after liking. Trust me, the figure is really astonishing (and worry) to say the least.
Do you have any special tips to gain loyal followers on Facebook pages? Leave a comment below and let’s discuss!
See also: Best Facebook Tools For Serious Marketers
