“You Like Me, You Really Like Me”
This is not one of those Sally Field moments where you scream, “You like me, you really like me!” Your insecurity about the number of Facebook Likes you have for your business page is not a reflection of how popular you
are or how well you have done as a business. It’s just a number. You can always buy 2000 Likes for $200 these days, but what good would that do. You need to have Likes from people who at least have an interest in what you have to offer.
Many business owners would rather have their finger nails pulled out than have to deal with social media! So, here are 7 simple things you can implement today to get the ball rolling. If nothing else, you will at least learn if you even want to start the ball rolling.
Be Active and Provide Fresh Content Daily
If you are already balking at this one, stop and take a deep breath. There are many ways to provide content on a daily basis. (More on that to come) You must interact with your audience throughout the day with fresh and engaging content. Why? Because they will share it with their friends, and their friends will share it with their friends. This increases the exposure and reach of your business. You never know who knows who out there. Just keep in mind when creating the posts, “Would I find this interesting?”
Use Social Media Plugins
If your website is on the WordPress platform, there are several social media plugins you can use to share Facebook posts. Plugins like Digg Digg and Facebooks’s Social Plugin are great tools that can be used to promote your posts and get more likes.
Don’t Always Post Business Stuff
Your audience will get bored, if all you ever post is business-related material. Remember to ask yourself, “Would I find this post interesting?” Mix it up. Know who you are targeting and post stuff that is funny or educational; add videos or slide shows and jokes, for example. Engagement is the key. You are posting stuff for human beings, so keep it fresh and interesting and diverse.
Ask Questions
Following along those lines, ask questions in your posts. Ask for comments or answers. As we have mentioned before, engagement is key, so develop ways to engage your audience. Try to get them to interact with your posts. Animals, cars, sports and celebrities are some of the top items people like to engage with, so use creative ways to utilize these things.
Promote Your Posts
Promoting a specific post can really help you reach a lot people. Facebook now allows posts on your business page, not your profile page, to promote any specific post for a fee. The “Boost Your Post” will give you options for the audience that you want to reach and how much money you want to spend. Facebook will also tell you approximately how many people will see the boosted post in their news feed for the amount of money you are spending. So,
no matter what your budget is, if you have a special post that needs to reach a greater audience, you now have that option. Make sure your post has a small amount of text on it. Facebook will deny your Boost request, if the text is too long.
Run a Contest
There are many third party apps that you can use to run Facebook contests. Offer something of value as the prize for the contest winner, and people will Like your page just to get a chance to win the prize. Yes you may not get the kind of Likes you want, but don’t forget, you never know who they know. This is a simple, but effective method of getting Likes in a short time period. The bigger the prize, the more people are likely to play. Just make sure you balance the prize with the number of Likes you hope to get out of it.
Pin Your Posts to the Top
Make sure you Pin your most popular posts to the top of your Facebook page. After posting on a daily basis, posts get shoved further down your timeline and ultimately off the page. So make sure you Pin your most popular posts to the top so they continue to get seen and shared. Posts with images, 403px by 403px, work best for Facebook and are typically more popular than text based posts.
It may seem like a lot of work, and it is, but there are services like Hootsuite or Buffer that can make the process of posting to your Facebook page and other social media accounts a lot easier. With just a little invested time on your part, you can increase you Facebook Likes and keep your audience engaged so that when the time comes to potentially use your services, they will look nowhere else but your business.
