How to grow your Facebook fan following
August 16th, 2017 by Morna
Last week I got an email from one of our ICAP members who had reached her 5,000 friend limit on her Facebook Profile and wanted to get my thoughts on how to add all those friends to her Facebook Page. Those of us who’ve been on Facebook a long time remember when Facebook Pages didn’t exist. As a result, we have many, many business connections who are now our “friends”.
One problem you may run into is that when you joined Facebook, you agreed to its Terms of Service. The TOS can make for interesting reading, and you will find this statement: “You will not use your personal timeline primarily for your own commercial gain, and will use a Facebook Page for such purposes.”
That doesn’t mean that you can’t post art business items on your personal profile. It means that you aren’t using it entirely for personal gain. Many of us are our own “brand,” and it would be hard to separate our personal side from our business side.
That said, here are some ways that you can build your Facebook Page fan base with your personal and business friends. If you are interested in learning more ways to do this, the International Association of Creative Arts Professionals (ICAP) is hosting a training in September to do this. You can learn more about ICAP and join here.
Invite friends to like your Page
On your Page, you’ll find a place to invite your friends. It’s just below the cover photo in a block of type, and it’s the pulldown menu of three dots. Look for “Invite Friends.” A dialog box opens and you’ll find a list of all your friends — all 500 or 5,000. Just click “Invite” and your friends will receive an invitation to like your page.
Make an announcement on your Profile
If you have a Page, then you should be using it to promote your business on a consistent basis. You can post on your personal page that you are using your Page for posting all your design and art work and suggest that people “like” the page if they want to keep up with your art. You can still cross post, only share the Page post to your Personal page.
Link your Page on your Profile
If you look at your profile, you’ll see a column on the left called Intro. It picks up information from your About section. In the Work and Education section include your Facebook Page. It will automatically populate into the Overview and show up on your Timeline. Friends who come to your Profile will see this and may click over to your Page.
Add Facebook Page url to your business card
You pass out business cards in a variety of situations. Make it easy for your fans to find you on Facebook by including the url. You can use the actual Facebook url or create a link using your website url.
Add a Facebook Like button on your website
You want to look for all the opportunities that you can to get people to know about your business. You can also add the social share buttons for Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Google Plus to your website home page.
Engage, engage, engage
It’s important to get people to like your Page. It’s even more important to engage with the people who do so. Set goals to connect on a regular, consistent basis. You can do this with sharing your art and its processes, sharing industry content, hosting a poll, boosting your content, and asking questions.
What about new Friend requests?
You’ll likely get more friend requests, and since you are at the 5,000 limit you won’t be able to accept them. My suggestion is to craft an message that says something like, “Thanks for wanting to connect. I’ve reached my friend limit. Head on over to my Facebook Page (add url) and like my page. That’s where I share all my art and design processes. I look forward to connecting there.”
It’s your turn!
What other ways do you use to build your Facebook Page? And to help you promote your Page, share it in the comments below.
Tags: business, Facebook fans, Facebook likes, Facebook pages