Apr
26
1. Spark initial growth numbers within the network quickly
If you’re looking to reach a wide audience, (this brand has mass appeal) reaching enough active users in the network to reach a tipping point is the first, crucial step. There are just more potential people to share/like/comment on your content you’re adding into the channel (which in Facebook helps grow a fan page due to the fact this activity shows up in user feeds).
An easy way to start is get multiple influential users to invite all of their friends to become fans of the page. If you can get 20 people each to invite 100 users, and encourage those users to invite their own friends, you’ll start to see growth. Use incentives if necessary – contests, rewards for joining, etc. Facebook has specific rules now (which weren’t in place when I made this page) that make some of this more difficult, but there are still plenty of creative ways to do this.
2. Leverage external traffic streams/subscriber bases
Take stock of all your communities, email lists, websites and any other place you have a digital presence. Start to call them to action to join your fan page. Add links to your blog sidebar, put a CTA on the homepage of the website you’re already marketing, add a link in employee emails, put links in your email marketing, etc. Put it bold and up front to start – the key is to funnel enough subscribers to the page where a natural cycle of growth begins by virtue of more people becoming fans. The strategy here is simple: leverage what you have to spark growth in a new community until it’s growing organically.
But remember: the long-term play is to consistently siphon people out of Facebook to a community where SEO/social media value can really ramp up and you’re not limited by the rules of playing in a network you don’t control. In other words: once your fan page is growing organically, flip the funnel: start to move people out of Facebook to your own, self-hosted platform like a blog.
3. Continually update the page with new content
More content on the page is going to be more content for users to interact with. And, due to how Facebook has setup their system, users consistently engaging with content is a key component to growth. By reaching into the streams of individual users your brand can start to grow fast if your content is worth reacting to.
Other ideas:
- Buy targeted advertising on Facebook’s platform
- Leverage your offline networks (TV/newspaper/magazine ads, etc.)
- Run a contest/promotion offline of Facebook, yet encourage users to become a fan during the promotion process (since there is quite a bit of red tape to actually run promotions on Facebook fan pages themselves)
- Create some unmissable content published exclusively on your Facebook fan page
- Frequently make special offer announcements and even new product announcements through the page first
- Hire a community manager to implement ongoing growth opportunities across all your social channels
- Buy Google ads to drive traffic directly to your Facebook fan page
- End your press releases with your Facebook fan page link
- Provide talking points to publicized team members to say become a fan in Facebook during interviews
Of course, there are plenty of additional methods for growing Facebook fan pages/platform specific pages. But any additional recommendations or ideas are going to be more specific based on the brand or product involved (the above are all quite general).
The bigger thing to remember is know how you’re going to make your Facebook presence work for your larger digital strategy prior to doing anything. Without this, sure – you can grow something popular, but it should still feed a larger objective.
