7 Quick Ways to Grow a Fan Base on Facebook

Growing a fan base on Facebook isn’t easy. It’s especially hard if you’re trying to grow a fan base for a new page. Fifteen years ago, new pages could grow quickly and organically because there were so few pages competing for attention in the news feed. But nowadays, if you want to grow a high-quality, engaged fan base, you need to plan and execute well.

Here are 7 quick ways to grow a fan base on Facebook.

1. Define your target market

Every business should know its ideal customer BEFORE getting started on Facebook. Remember, not all 2.95 billion Facebook users represent your target customer.

Try finding the right kind of fans is essential if you want to use Facebook to drive sales.  And targeting helps you find the right kinds of fans. It’s preferable to have 100 targeted fans who engage with my posts, than 10,000 fans who liked your page but never comment or share a post.

2. Get the tone right

Now that you’ve defined your target audience, you need to start talking to them through the posts on your page. While communicating with fans you should:

• speak like them
  
  
• think like them
  
  
• act like them

3. Identify which posts spur the most engagement

Every Facebook page is unique and posts that work on one page may not get engagement on another page. That’s why it’s important to test what works and what doesn’t.

Facebook status ideas that repeatedly spark response from fans include:

• Questions

  People love to answer yes/no or similar one word answers. Just keep it relevant.
  
  

• Photos

  Images always win on Facebook because the website is so visual.
  
  

• Fill in the blanks

  These allow for a quick answer on light-hearted topic.
  
  

• Contests

  Facebook contests typically do well with targeted fans but don’t use contests too often and make sure prizes are relevant to your page.

4. Remember it’s a long-term investment

Successful social media marketing takes time, hard work and patience. So continue building your page and maintaining strong relationships with fans. And remember,  those not buying today will know about your brand when they need to make a purchase somewhere down the road.

5. Keep it real, relaxed and relevant

While building your fan base, you gotta keep things real, relaxed and relevant. Don’t get frustrated when sales don’t immediately come. Don’t start blasting promotional posts every hour thinking that’s the best way to drum up business. You’ll only chase away high-quality fans and blow your budget in the process. Instead, try a post a day in the beginning.

Don’t overwhelm fans by flooding the news feed right out of the gate. Give fans a chance to get to know, like and trust you. Then start posting more often. Consistency is important, but quality should be your top priority if you hope to grow a high-quality fan base.

6. Stick to a schedule

As a page manager, the worst thing you can do – especially in the beginning – is post sporadically. Two posts Monday, 4 on Tuesday, none Wednesday, 7 posts on Thursday and nothing on the weekend.

Sound familiar? Stop it! This won’t help your page. Set up a schedule with times during the day when you want to post. A posting schedule is critical for any successful Facebook page. Just decide what and when you’re going to post, then stick to it.

7. Monitor and measure

Finally, sit back and evaluate what works. Take some time once a month to explore your page’s Insights. Identify what worked and what didn’t.

If a post gets ZERO engagement, obviously that technique didn’t work and it’s time to make some adjustments. Just make sure you are reviewing the results at least once every 30 days.

SOURCE: Post Planner