How to Get Your First 1000 Real Facebook Fans
Every new Facebook page always starts small. When you’re just getting started, making the leap from 0 to 1,000 fans can seem nearly impossible. But the truth is, that with a well-thought out plan the desired 1K destination is entirely within your reach.
As a page owner, your journey for gaining more likes should include 3 important elements: content, outreach and learning. This formula is particularly important at the early stages but will continue to be useful later on as you promote your already established Facebook page.
What exactly does this mean? Let’s break down your immediate tasks for reaching the 1,000 fans goal.
1. Connect your website with your Facebook page
Adding a Facebook widget that invites website visitors to like your page is not only useful in increasing your likes count, it also gives your website visitors an additional contact and engagement point with your brand.
2. Invite Facebook friends to become fans
Facebook gives you the ability to send invitations to your list of Facebook friends (those who follow your personal profile) and request that they like your page. This is quite an effective feature, because your personal friends will be more prone to liking a page knowing that they have an acquaintance with the page manager.
In addition to this automated invitation, you should post updates on your Facebook profile inviting friends to like the page. Don’t be afraid to approach friends in a personal message, send them the link and tell them you would really appreciate their like.
3. Begin cross-platform promotion
Boosting your Facebook page to the max requires some help from the outside. Reaching out to your Facebook friends is the first step, but you have to include cross-platform promotion to maximise exposure.
You need to talk about and link to your new Facebook page on your newsletters, blog posts and any other social channels you’re using.
To avoid being spammy, don’t ask people to like your page but link to valuable photos or updates that you’ve posted.
4. Post shareable content
And now we’ve reached the most important task of all, which happens to be the most challenging, as well.
The quality of the content you post to your Facebook page can become the number one factor in your fan base growth rate. When your content is good enough, people will respond to it by liking, commenting and sharing – thus promoting your page to their own network of friends and followers.
All good and well, but what exactly is “shareable content”? There’s no straightforward answer to that and it certainly varies, depending on the audience you’re addressing.
One way you can approach this is by paying attention to Facebook posts that your friends engage with and understand what makes them tick. Another important step to take is to visit Facebook pages you admire and get a sense of what they consider “shareable”.
5. Use clever hashtags
Experienced page admins will tell you that great content is super important, but on its own it’s not always enough. You need to use tricks to help your content rise above the mass of posts, photos and videos that every Facebook user is flooded with.
Hashtags are one of these useful tricks that get your content more views by attaching it to a specific thread of interest or topic.
6. Start advertising with sponsored posts
For those who can afford paid advertising, Facebook’s sponsored posts have proven to be a powerful and effective tool for maximising visibility.
Even if you don’t have any experience with online advertising, Facebook advertising can still be of value to your page. The most important aspect here is that you set your own budget, which gives you control of your spend. The right thing to do, as always, is to start small and gradually upscale.
7. Learn from your wins and fails with Facebook Insights
If you’re serious about your Facebook page, you better get used to the idea of working with graphs and stats. If you run your page purely on instinct, you’re missing out on opportunities to tweak and improve your content, your work schedule, your interaction with fans, etc.
Facebook Insights is a built-in tool that generates tons of valuable information on your page activity. Reviewing this data will help you make smarter operational and content choices.
8. Define, seek and re-evaluate your page goals
Since by now you’ve become an expert page manager, it’s time to take your page to the next level and start thinking like a pro. This means defining goals for yourself, setting up a plan for achieving them and tracking your progress towards these goals.
For instance, if your main goal for the next business quarter is to get your first 1,000 Facebook fans, you’ll need to divide the quarter into months and weeks, determine how long it should take you to reach your first 250 fans and which actions you plan to take in order to meet this goal.
There are always surprises and it’s important to stay flexible, but this type of detailed planning will help you with a solid foundation for your daily work.
SOURCE: Wix
