The 10 steps below demonstrate with a real example of how to get more than 10,000 fans on your Facebook business page.
Facebook is the king of social networks with more than 2.3 billion active users per month (Updated January 2019).
It is used by more than 60% of Internet users worldwide and it is a great tool for promoting a product or service, finding new customers, or gaining more loyal readers (followers).
To take advantage of this for business purposes, you need to have a lot of fans (followers) on your Facebook business page.
Let’s see below why having many Facebook fans is important.
What is the importance of having many Facebook fans on your business page?
It indicates popularity – It goes without saying that the number of fans reveals how popular a website is.
A Facebook business page with 100,000 followers is more popular than a page with 1,000 fans and this leads to a number of other benefits (described below).
It indicates trust – If you can’t understand the relationship between Facebook fans and business trust, have in mind that the US State Department spent $630,000 to increase their Facebook Fans from 100,000 to 2 million during the years 2011-2012 (See related post from marketingland).
Why did they do this?
Because in today’s World a successful business, website, or blog needs to have a lot of Facebook fans. Five Years ago this did not make any difference but in the 21st century, social proof is important.
More fans, more visits – The more fans you have, the greater is the number of people that will see your posts in their timeline and possibly visit your website.
While this is true, it should be noted that not all your fans will see your posts.
With the recent changes to the Facebook algorithm, only a small percentage of your followers (no more than 4 %) will see your status updates.
This number can vary, but what is important to understand now, is that if you have 10,000 fans and you post a new update, it will be seen organically by a max of 300-400 people.
It’s good for SEO as well – Although officially Google does not admit that social media is a ranking factor, many studies show that popular websites on Facebook are more likely to perform better in search, than not so popular websites (other factors being equal).
How to go from 0 to 10,000 Facebook fans
Now that you are convinced that having a lot of Facebook fans is important for your website and business, let’s see step-by-step how to go from 0 to 10,000 fans.
Note: These are the exact same steps I followed to increase the facebook followers of my fitness blog’s facebook page. Currently the page has more than 130K fans and it continuous to grow organically.
Step 1: First things first – you need to have a Facebook business page
It may sound silly for the experienced but for beginners to social media this may be something new: A personal Facebook page is different from a business page.
If you want to have friends on Facebook to share your holiday photos then you need to create a personal page.
If you want to have fans and followers for your website or business then you need to create a Facebook business page.
So, the first step is to ensure that you create a Facebook business page and the second step is to make sure that your page is properly 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 a catchy description (in 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 of all.
The quality of the content posted on your Facebook business page will also determine success or failure.
Having an optimized Facebook page makes it easier to attract new fans or more likes from ads as we will see below.
Step 3: Take advantage of your personal Facebook account
I mentioned in step 1 above that you need to have a business page and not a personal page, but you still need to have an active personal Facebook account.
Here is why:
After you post an update on your business page, one of the ways to increase exposure and likes is to share that post on your personal page as well.
People you have as friends on your personal page are more likely to ‘like’ and ‘interact’ with the post shared from your business page and this will increase the engagement factor of your posts.
As a result, Facebook will show your posts to more fans (organically).
So, one of the ways to increase the number of people that view your posts and go past the 4% of your fan base is to share and promote the post on your personal page.
It goes without saying that the greater the number of friends the bigger will be the visibility of the post.
Also, make sure that you invite all your existing friends (and new ones) to like your Facebook business page. Do that every time you gain a new ‘friend’.
Step 4: Add the Facebook Like box on your website
This is again social media marketing 101 but you need to have the Facebook like box on your website for 3 reasons:
#1 – It’s a way to associate your website with the Facebook business page. In other words, it is a way to ‘tell’ search engines that this is your official Facebook business page.
#2 – When you get a lot of fans, this is something you should be proud of and something to show to your users (as explained above this means popularity, trust, and social proof).
#3 – It’s a good way to grow your fan base organically. Your readers can follow your website by clicking the LIKE button without having to go to Facebook.
Hint: For optimum results, position the LIKE box above the fold (on the sidebar).
Hint 2: You can also popup the like box to new users (for example, after they spend 60 seconds on a page, after they scroll down to the bottom or after they try to leave your page – while this works well in terms of getting new likes, you should be careful not to make it too distracting for your users.)
Step 5: Follow these tips to increase post engagement
So far, we have created an optimized Facebook business page, added friends to our personal Facebook page, and placed the like box in a prominent position on our website.
The next natural step is to start sharing content to keep your fans happy and maybe manage to convert them from fans > web site visitors > customers.
Some simple rules to follow that will increase the user engagement with your Facebook business page:
#1 – Share relevant content
Share content that your fans expect to see on your page.
For example, if your website is about Social media, share content related to social media and not about sports or anything else you might like.
If your users want to read sports news, they know where to find them.
#2 – Keep it business
Don’t forget that they follow your business page to get updates about your website (and niche) and not about your social gatherings.
If you want to get social, then use your personal Facebook page, your business page is about your website.
As a rule thumb, I use my business page to share content from my niche only, if I need to share something which is not related to my niche, I use my personal page.
#3 – Don’t be too promotional
Sharing promotional content (all the time) on your Facebook page will drive your fans away.
When you have a promotion to share or something that might benefit your fans, you can do so but don’t overdo it.
Try to post interesting, shareable content that is related to your niche, even if this does not come directly from your website. Keep a balance between promotional and content that your followers might want to read.
Step 6: Share interesting and high-quality content (not just links)
I made some tests regarding the impact of descriptions when doing a Facebook update and found out that Facebook posts with ‘lists’ get more likes than posts with just links.
Let me give you an example to understand what I mean.
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