How to obtain your First 10,000 Fans on Facebook (Case Study)

The 10 steps below demonstrate with a real example ways to get more than 10,000 fans on the Facebook business page.

Facebook may be the king of social networking sites using more than 1.79 billion active users per month (Updated December 2016). It really is used by more than 60% of Internet surfers Worldwide and it is an excellent tool for promoting services or products, finding customers or gaining more loyal readers (followers).

To utilize this for business purposes, you might want plenty of fans (followers) on the Facebook business page. Let’s see below why having many Facebook fans is essential.

What may be the importance of having many Facebook fans on the business page?

It indicates popularity – It goes without saying the number of fans reveals how popular an internet site is. A popularity business page with 100,000 followers is much more popular than the usual page with 1,000 fans and this leads to a number of other benefits (described below).

It indicates trust – In case you can’t view the relationship between Facebook fans and business trust, consider the US State Department spent $630,000 to boost their Facebook Fans from 100,000 to two million in the years 2011-2012 (See related post from marketingland).

Why did they do this? Because in today’s World a successful business, website needs plenty of Facebook fans. Five-years ago this did not make any difference but also in the Twenty-first century, social proof is essential.

More fans, more visits – The more fans you might have, the more may be the amount of people which will view your posts inside their timeline and perhaps visit your website.

While this is, it must be noted that doesn’t your fans will discover your posts.

As already explained inside a previous post, How to boost your Facebook Page Organic Reach, just a small portion of one’s followers (a maximum of 4 %) will discover your status updates.

This number can differ, what is essential to comprehend now, is that if you might have 10,000 fans and also you post a brand new update, it will likely be seen organically by way of a max of 300-400 people.

It’s great for SEO as well – Although officially Google does not admit that social media is really a ranking factor, many studies show that popular websites on Facebook are more inclined to perform better in search, these days so well received websites (additional circumstances being equal).

How to travel from 0 to 10,000 Facebook fans

Now that you’re convinced that having a great deal of Facebook fans is essential for your website and business, let’s see step-by-step how to move from 0 to 10,000 fans.

Note: Fundamental essentials identical steps I followed to boost the facebook followers of my fitness blog’s facebook page. Typically the page has more than 100K fans also it continous growing organically.

Step 1: First off – you might want a Facebook business page

It sounds silly for that experienced but for beginners to social media this can be something totally new: An individual Facebook page differs from an enterprise page.

If you need to have friends on Facebook to share your holiday photos you will need to generate a personal page however if you wish to have fans and followers for your website or business you will need to generate a Facebook business page.

So, the initial step is usually to ensure that you develop a Facebook business page as well as the next step is usually to be sure that your page is correctly optimized.

Step 2: Optimize your Facebook business page

When we talk about Facebook business page optimization we mean choosing a friendly page title (username), writing an appealing description (within the short description field), providing accurate information for long description, company overview, mission (see screenshot below) and of course posting interesting content – this is the most important optimization tip coming from all.

The expertise of the content posted on the Facebook business page will likely determine it’s success or failure.

Having an optimized Facebook page makes it simpler to draw in new fans or more likes from ads as we will discover below.

Step 3: Take advantage of your personal Facebook account

I mentioned in step one above you will want to use a business page instead of a private page, however, you still need to have an active personal facebook account.

Here is the reason:

After you post an update on the business page, one way to boost exposure and likes, is usually to share that post on the personal page at the same time.

People you might have as friends on the personal page are more inclined to ‘like’ and ‘interact’ with all the post shared out of your business page which will raise the engagement factor of one’s posts.

As a result, facebook can have your posts to more fans (organically).

So, one way to boost the quantity of individuals who view your posts and go past the 4% of you following is usually to share and promote the post on the personal page.

It is obvious the greater the number of friends the greater could be the visibility in the post.

Also, just be sure you invite your existing friends (and a new one) to love your Facebook business page. Do this any time you achieve a new ‘friend’.

Step 4: Add some Facebook Like box on the website

This is again facebook marketing 101 however, you require the Facebook like box on the website for several reasons:

#1 – It’s a method to associate your internet site with all the Facebook business page. In other words this is a strategy to ‘tell’ engines like google this is your official Facebook business page.

#2 – When you’re getting plenty of fans, that is something you must be proud off the other to indicate to your users (as explained above what this means is popularity, trust and social proof).

#3 – It’s a great way to expand your following organically. Readers can follow your internet site by clicking so on button without needing to head to Facebook.

Hint: For optimum results, squeeze LIKE box above fold (about the sidebar).

Hint 2: You may also popup so on box to new users (for instance, after they spend A minute with a page, after they scroll right down to the bottom or after they make an effort to leave your page – although this works well when it comes to getting new likes, you should be careful to not allow it to be too distracting for your users.)

Step 5: Follow these suggestions to increase post engagement

So far, we’ve created an optimized Facebook business page, added friends to the personal Facebook page and placed so on box inside a prominent position on the website.

The next natural step is usually to start sharing content to maintain fans happy and perhaps be capable of convert them from fans > web site visitors > customers.

Some simple rules to check out which will raise the user engagement with your facebook business page:

#1 – Share relevant content: Share content that your particular fans count on seeing inside your page. For instance, if your website is about Social media marketing, share content related to social media instead of about sports or another type you may like. If your users need to read sports news, they know finding them.

#2 – Don’t forget that they follow your organization page to have updates regarding your website (and niche) instead of regarding your social gatherings: If you want to get social, then use your personal Facebook page, your organization page is all about your internet site.

#3 – Generally thumb, I take advantage of my offer page to share content from my niche only, if I need to share a thing that isn’t related to my niche, I take advantage of our page.

#4 – Don’t be too promotional: Sharing promotional content (all the time) on the Facebook page will drive your fans away. When you’ve got a promotion to share or something like that that may benefit your fans, you can do so but don’t go crazy.

Try to create interesting, shareable content that is related to your niche, of course this won’t come straight from your internet site. Have a very balance between promotional and content that your particular followers should read.

Step 6: Share interesting and top quality content (not only links)

I made some tests concerning the impact of descriptions when you are conducting a Facebook update and found out that Facebook posts with ‘lists’ get more likes than posts with only links. Allow me to give you one example to understand I mean.

When you need to share an article out of your website on Facebook, you want to Facebook status updates and enter the webpage URL. It looks similar to this:

You can share this article without adding any extra information. If your title and images are great, you’ll get many likes based on the time you create the post, number of fans etc.

If one the opposite hand, you enrich this post by adding more info and particularly a list, then other activities being equal, you’re very likely to gain in likes and shares.

For me as a result sense since people that go to a title and image inside their timeline may well not ‘Like It’ since it provides no value in their mind (don’t forget the average user is offered hundreds of postings inside their timeline every time they login to Facebook).

On the opposite hand once you provide them with valuable, top quality and easy to read information (being a list), they’ll select the LIKE button simply because they read something useful without needing to leave their timeline.

Note: It is a known proven fact that individuals have an inclination of LIKING an article without reading it so provide them with good reasons to do this; your internet site visits may well not increase nevertheless the engagement factor of one’s posts will rise.

Step 7: Share images, videos and emotions

If you take a peek at some of the most popular Facebook pages, so as to they have a tendency to share images, videos, infographics, charts etc, and their usual text only postings.

This kind of content gets more likes and shares and for that reason the page gets more fans and followers.

In a recent study by Buzzsumo, they identified the most shared and liked content on Facebook, has the following characteristics:

Step 8: Provide incentives to get additional fans & followers

Why should someone follow your Facebook business page?

You need to give incentives to facebook users to check out your page. Several ideas to consider:

Quality updates – This is the best incentive you are able to lengthy users. Before posting anything on the page, you’ll want to be sure that it offers a superior value to your audience. When you do this consistently, you existing followers will share it using their friends which will have more users.

Run a tournament – Some websites run contests on Facebook and giveaway different gifts. The ‘price’ for joining this content is usually to Just like the page first. There are various tools to do that but consider if you don’t use a known brand this many not so successful.

Content upgrades – In case you have a blog, you can use ask users to LIKE your page to have new version of one’s post. This calls for extra tools however it is something worth checking out.

Step 9: You need to promote your own content and page

When you create your organization page don’t expect it will magically get thousands of fans. In addition to the tips outlined above, there is also to advertise your organization page in places other than Facebook.

A few ideas to take into consideration that assisted my case:

Promote in other social media networks – In case you have accounts with social media channels e.g. Google+, Pinterest etc. you are able to periodically ask your followers to sign up yourself on Facebook at the same time. Be polite and reveal to them the advantages from doing this.

Promote in Twitter – Besides posting regarding your Facebook page on other social media networks, you are able to take advantage of twitter’s interactive features.

When you receive a new twitter follower, send them a personal (personalized) message and enquire of the crooks to follow yourself on facebook (both your personal and business pages).

This method though it is time consuming, (I did so it manually instead of using any tools) it can produce fantastic results.

Promote inside your newsletter – In case you have a newsletter or you engage with your readers via email, just be sure you ask them to follow your Facebook page.

Do not only write the FB URL below your signature but Inquire politely to LIKE your organization page.

Step 10: Facebook ads is really a must

I have saved one of several easiest and quite a few effective ways to raise your Facebook fans for last, as it is the only one that it’s not free.

Facebook comes with a self-service ad platform which you can use to either raise your following (promote your page), boost your posts, get more leads, increase conversions or perform a number of other actions (as shown within the image above).

The procedure is pretty simple and straightforward. Basically you choose a website you use, select your ultimate goal (promote your page), select your audience (according to country, age, other demographics and interests) after which set your everyday budget and duration.

The cost per campaign is determined by many factors. The easiest method to assess if Facebook ads is a superb treatment for raise your following, is usually to operate a pilot campaign for 2 days.

Spend $10-$20 dollars every day and run the campaigns for any fixed duration (a minimum of weekly). At the end, you are able to evaluate if the price per like is one area you’re ready to buy.

I had great results with Facebook ads both for my websites and then for client websites and I run campaigns each month (during their visit) to further improve my facebook likes.

It must be noted that with Facebook ads you don’t buy likes but views. Many people feel that whatever you buy is Facebook likes in fact you spend Facebook to indicate your ad to more Facebook users.

If what you are advertising is interesting, then more people will hit so on button so spend some time and consider the message you need to display inside your ad and also the image to use.

Conclusion

Having a huge number of Facebook fans on the business pages is very important for credibility and social promotion purposes.

If this wasn’t crucial in consumers, then nobody would care as well as the US State Department wouldn’t need to spend $630 thousands for Facebook campaigns.

Once you do the mandatory optimizations to your business page (steps 1 and a couple of above), then a fastest way to get additional followers is to apply Facebook ads. Along with some A/B testing you can get to 10,000 fans with no more than $1,000 (spread in a time period of months).

Once you do everything properly and given that there is a great product or service, you are able to expand your fans to 100,000+ like I did so with all the Facebook Page of my fitness blog.