How to Grow your Facebook Page
Growing a big organic Facebook page is tougher than it sounds. There’s so much advice out there on how to grow your Facebook page, and not all of it is good. With well over 1.5 billion users, Facebook has become the number one place to share your content. So, if you’re running a business, it’s essential to have a Facebook page so you can connect with customers and target your ideal customer base. However, just having a Facebook page is not enough.
The aim of your page is to build engagement, grow your audience and improve your rankings. This article provides you with the latest tactics for growing Facebook page followers, increasing engagement, driving traffic, and improving brand awareness.
Table of contents
- Define your goals for growing your page
- Create content that is relevant and of value to your followers
- Invite people personally to like your page
- Learn the different ways to promote and grow your Facebook page
- Use Facebook Ads to grow your page
- Engage with your audience to grow your Facebook Page
- Use analytics of your page to see what works and what doesn’t
- Summary
Define your goals for growing your page
The first step is to decide what you want to achieve. What do you hope to get out of your Facebook page? Are you hoping to drive more traffic to your website? Are you looking for more customers for your products? Or are you hoping to increase exposure for your company? Thus the most effective way to grow a Facebook page is to set a goal. That goal can be:
- To attract more fans
- To drive more traffic to your website
- To grow your email list
- To sell more product
- To grow your influence
- To sell more books
- To get more speaking invitations
- To raise funds for your organization
- To sell more of your services
Once you have a goal, you can start to take action.
- To attract more fans, you might need to share more engaging content more often.
- To drive more traffic to your website, you might need to advertise to Facebook users.
- To grow your email list, you might need to create some gated content.
- To sell more products, you might need to create a great sales page.
- To grow your influence, you might need to post more insightful content.
- To sell more books, you might need to create some appealing, free content.
- To get more speaking invitations, you might need to build a reputation as someone worth listening to.
- To raise funds for my organization, you might need to reach out to influential people.
- To sell more of my services, you might need to offer something valuable.
Create content that is relevant and of value to your followers
If you ask any social media user why they use the service, the answer is usually something along the lines of “to share content with my friends/followers.” But content is only relevant if other people are interested. Only having content to share with your followers is not how you grow your Facebook page.
So you need to think of your followers as your audience. That might not mean you have to care about what they think, but it does mean that you need to think about them. A lot of social media users treat their profiles as billboards, shouting out their messages to anyone who will listen.
That’s not the way it works.
The idea behind Facebook and social media, in general, is “user-generated content.” If users make content, other people want to consume it. What they consume, they comment on. What they comment on, they share with their friends and followers. It’s this feedback loop that is the key to social media success. Of course, that only works if you have something to say.
In other words, you have to create content that provides value
- Of course, value isn’t the same as interesting.
- Of course, value isn’t the same as relevant.
- Of course, value isn’t the same as useful.
- But value can be all those things, and it can still work.
For example, the “most popular” posts on Slashdot, the social news website, are often the ones with the most comments. The “most popular” YouTube videos are the ones with the most views. The “most popular” tweets are the ones that get the most retweets.
You don’t have to be a professional comedian or entertainer to be successful on social media. In order to learn how to grow your Facebook page, the following things are needed:
- You do have to be interesting.
- You have to be relevant.
- You have to be useful.
- You have to add value.
- You have to make people laugh, make people cry, make them think, make them do, make them wonder.
- You have to make them care.
Facebook’s algorithms have evolved and changed a lot over the years. Now when you post something, Facebook’s algorithms try to figure out if it’s really relevant to people who are already following you or people you might know. If not, it doesn’t get shown to anyone. That means that unless you post something really valuable to your followers, they won’t see your posts, and you won’t reach anyone new.
Invite people personally to like your page
Facebook has a feature that makes it possible for you to invite people to “like” your page. This makes it easy to keep in touch with lots of people or to keep in touch with just a few people who matter. This is one of the keys if you are fighting with the question, of how to grow your Facebook page.
The important thing about invitations is that they should be personal. Don’t send invitations as if you were writing to your friends. Send your invitations as if you were writing to your friends’ friends and be extra courteous. When you invite people to like your page, include as many details about why they should like it as you can. Your invitation should have all the information on what you can offer them if they like your page.
Learn the different ways to promote and grow your Facebook page
In the journey of how to grow your Facebook page and to become a really successful entrepreneur, the next step is not to create a better trap for people’s curiosity, but to find a problem that people would like to have solved.
So, if you are trying to get page hits, the thing to do is to find a problem that others would love to have solved. To get page hits, you need to know what people are looking for. The best strategy is to get feedback from your fans, friends, and followers. Ask them what they like and don’t like. Do they have suggestions for things they would like to see?
Other ways to grow your Facebook page include advertising on external websites, including your blog, and communicating directly with people. Another way to get visitors to your page is to ask friends to “like” your page. You reach more people by advertising on external websites than you do by advertising on Facebook itself because Facebook is a fairly closed community.
Another good strategy, if you want to know how to grow your Facebook page, is to do the following:
- If you promote your page, you’ll attract more followers. The followers will like your page and share their posts with their friends.
- Now, if you promote your page, then the people who like your fan page will share their posts with their friends.
- Make sure that you promote your fan page because you want to reach as many people as possible.
- When people share your page, their friends and their friends’ friends will see it, and it will reach even more people.
- If you have a lot of people liking and sharing your page, then other people will see it, and so will their friends.
- This goes on and on until your page has thousands of followers.
Use Facebook Ads to grow your page
Facebook ads are a powerful way to grow your audience. But most Facebook pages that advertise on Facebook might not be successful. Why? The answer is key to knowing how to grow your Facebook page.
The reason why many people can’t use Facebook ads successfully is that most people don’t understand Facebook ads. That’s not their fault, of course; it’s Facebook’s fault. The ads are easy to set up, but the devil is in the details. And Facebook’s devil is one you can’t fight: Facebook’s ads are optimized for maximum revenue, not for effectiveness.
So how can you grow your Facebook page by using Facebook ads? Start by understanding your audience. It’s much easier to get good results when you create ads for people who already know you. So if you run a restaurant, for example, create ads for people who already like your page. Facebook will also show your page to the people that are friends with people who like your page.
Next, use remarketing. It is a technique where you can use your product’s website, blog, etc. to get people to like your Facebook page. When you advertise on Facebook, you target people who want to see your ads, based on your past interactions with them (through likes or visits to your website, blogs, etc.). Facebook keeps a list of those people, and when you run an ad, Facebook shows it to the ones who already liked you and to the ones that are in their friend lists. This way, by connecting your website, blog, etc. to Facebook, you can direct traffic towards your Facebook page and help it grow.
Finally, use A/B testing. Every time you want to advertise, create a different ad and test which one gets more clicks. Use a winner, then start running ads using the winning ad. Use ads to get your fans to do more than just like your page. Use Facebook ads to get people to visit your website, sign up for your mailing list, buy your products, or call you. To get people to do that, create ads that prompt them to do something.
Engage with your audience to grow your Facebook Page
Facebook is a public forum, like Twitter. Your audience on Facebook is not captive, but free to take whatever action they like. And like on Twitter, they will often do just that. This doesn’t mean you should not try to engage your audience. If what you have to say, offer, or advertise, is genuinely interesting to other people, they will hear it.
To maximize your social media efforts, you should assume that your audience is intelligent and that they want to talk to each other. This will help you by leaps and bounds in your quest for how to grow your Facebook page.
Engage your audience on social media in general and on your Facebook page in particular by asking questions–simple questions, not “gotcha” questions, but questions that invite your audience to talk back. Give them the chance to say what they think, and to respond publicly, and in an encouraging, engaging manner.
If your message is interesting, they will. If they don’t, they won’t.
The second thing is, that Facebook is not like real life. In real life, if you want to connect with someone, you hang out together, share stuff, and build rapport. You don’t get on Facebook and just say, “Hey, I’d like to connect with you!” To connect with people on Facebook, you have to engage with them. You have to give them something. You have to create a relationship with them, even if it’s just a virtual one.
And the third thing is, that people have to know that you want to connect with them. If you don’t say, “Hey! Do you want to connect?”, no one is going to respond. You have to reach out to them constantly but not in an annoying manner. They need to know that you wish to connect with them and are offering them something they want in return.
So, how can you engage with your audience on Facebook?
- First, you have to give your audience something. You have to post something regularly, and it has to be interesting and useful.
- Second, you have to be active. You have to comment and answer people’s questions, and you have to let people know that you care.
- Third, you have to be responsive. If the people you want to connect with don’t hear from you for a long time, they may lose interest.
- Fourth, you have to nurture the relationship. You have to respond to your audience’s comments, and you have to thank them.
- Finally, you have to follow through. If you started a connection, you have to finish. If you say, “I will get back to you in 48 hours,” you have to.
By doing this, you will connect with your audience. And that’s the most important thing.
Use analytics of your page to see what works and what doesn’t
The last but definitely one of the most important things in order to grow your Facebook page is data analytics. You need data analysis to know what is working and what isn’t. Analytics tools record what happens on your page. To find out if your page is making any money, you need to collect analytics data.
Analytics tools record visits, clicks, and whatever else happens to your page. To know how to measure success, you need to know how to interpret the data.
Thus in order for you to grow your Facebook page, you will need to analyze the data and see what works and what does not, what your audience is most interested in, and what to avoid.
Summary
Facebook is a very powerful tool, one that’s true power most people do not realize. And if you are also wondering how to grow your Facebook page, the above-mentioned ways are almost certain to help you in your journey in an immense manner.