There’s nothing more humiliating than owning a Facebook page with only a few followers. Your business won’t look so good if a page visitor sees that you’re only sporting 150 likes and 80 followers.
Owning a Facebook page with a large following gives your business credibility, more leads, eligibility for ad breaks on live videos, and beta opportunities. If you’re facing a deficit in followers, have no fear. Below are seven sure-fire ways that leading Facebook marketing services use that you can rely on to increase page followers.
1. Follow Someone’s Page First
On Instagram, there is an unwritten etiquette on follows: if someone follows your account, common courtesy dictates that you reciprocate. The same unwritten etiquette applies to Facebook pages, especially if you, the Facebook page owner, have had a pleasant encounter with another Facebook page owner.
This is how our CEO, Brian Meert, who teaches Facebook ads on his free time, does it: during his classes, he plays a game. Everyone in the class must follow each other’s pages. It works partly because of the unwritten etiquette and partly because his students have had a pleasant experience during his lecture. Of course, you don’t need to teach a class to do this. After following someone’s page, private message a fellow page owner with whom you’ve interacted and ask them to follow your page. This page owner can be a client you’ve worked with, a business partner, or a customer. Don’t be afraid to ask. The worst they’ll do is say no (unless they prefer to kindly ignore you).
2. Post Valuable Content
If you post content that’s valuable, more people will likely follow you. Think of your relationship with your followers as symbiotic: it is grounded on mutual benefits. Your followers, who engage with your content, remain loyal to you, and, in return, you give them content that fulfills their needs. For example, if you’re in the B2B or B2C industry, you should post ebooks, guides, case studies, or infographics that benefit your followers. If you’re in the fashion industry, post lookbooks and fashion guides. If you’re in the entertainment industry, post videos, gifs, and culturally relevant memes that entertain. Giving your followers what they want will leave them begging for more content, and following your page is the only way they can get their hands on that.
3. Re-share Popular Content
As illustrated on point number two, posting valuable content will not only keep your current followers loyal, but it will also give you a higher chance of gaining more followers. If some of your posts have gone viral or accrued an impressive amount of engagement, don’t be afraid to share those posts again. If your post resonated with your current followers, they will also likely resonate with individuals who don’t already follow you.
Additionally, not all of your posts will reach all of your followers because your posts compete with posts by friends and family. Thus, you must re-share content every two months or so to ensure that those who haven’t seen your content will see them.
4. Include Like Buttons on Your Website
If you have a website, you should include CTA buttons that direct your visitors to your Facebook page. There are numerous plugins that let you do that. Below are the list of plugins for WordPress.
Facebook Widget
Simple Facebook Plugin
Facebook Like Box Widget
WP Facebook Like Button
Facebook Plugin
Facebook Page Promoter Lightbox
5. Include a Follow Button on Your Newsletters
You should include a follow button on your newsletters to turn your newsletter recipients to page followers. Because your leads are high-interest individuals (they wouldn’t have given you their emails if they weren’t already interested in your business), there is a high chance that they will follow your page once prompted.
6. Post Consistently
Posting consistently shows people that your Facebook page is alive and active. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be worth it for them to follow your page. As illustrated in point number three, your relationship with your followers must be symbiotic. If people are following your page, you must return the favor by consistently posting valuable content.
Although you should post consistently, you shouldn’t post too often to avoid spamming your followers. If you post often enough that your followers will perceive your posts as spam, they can hide your posts, report them as spam, or, even worse, unfollow you. All three actions will cause Facebook to penalize you by giving your page a lower rank on news feed.
Additionally, you shouldn’t post too often because Facebook doesn’t reward frequency. Rather, it rewards engagement numbers. For example, if you post 10 times a day but all of your posts have weak engagement, Facebook will rank your page lower in news feed.
7. Promote Your Page
You can promote your page by creating a Facebook ad optimized for brand awareness. The ad will contain the CTA “Like” which, once clicked, will automatically give your page one like and a new follower. (When you like a page, you automatically follow it.) A promoted page looks like this
Although promoting your page costs money, the costs are worth the high reach and conversions you will receive. When you promote your content, your reach expands beyond your followers. With the help of Facebook ad targeting, you can promote your page to the friends of your followers, individuals who share the same interests as your current followers, and individuals who are interested in content similar to yours. You can even show your page to your competitor’s followers.
If you’re lacking page followers, there’s no need to worry. As this post illustrates, gaining followers is easier than you think.
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