If you’ve set up a Facebook Page with the goals of building a Fan base and generating Leads, you first need to drive traffic to your Page. There are a variety of ways to do this, but here are a few ideas to get you started:
(1) Go to your Page’s Admin Panel and click on the Build Audience button. You can Invite Email Contacts (by uploading an email list) and Invite Facebook Friends (by sending a notification) to like your Page.
(2) Periodically share posts from your Page to your Personal Profile. If you’ve found or created a helpful post for your Page that might also interest your Friends, then share it to your Personal Profile’s Timeline. (Just go to the post on your Page, click on the “share” button and share it to your Timeline.) If your Page and/or business is celebrating a major event or milestone, you may want to share those posts on your Personal Profile as well. Keep in mind that you shouldn’t be using your Personal Profile as the vehicle to promote your business (per Facebook’s guidelines).
(3) Join Facebook Groups that your target audience has joined. Share posts that are of interest to the group and not purely promotional. Make sure you pay attention to the rules for each Group (topics allowed, number of posts allowed per day, etc.).
Tip: Use Facebook’s Graph Search to find Groups
In the Facebook search box, type parameters like
Groups that fans of Name of Page joined (Substitute your Page’s name for Name of Page).
(4) Promote your Facebook Page on other social media sites. If you have other social media accounts, put your Facebook Page link in your profile (where you can). Periodically share information about your Page, invite users on other sites to visit your Page for something unique, or mention special events, contests or offers happening on your Page.
(5) Put a Facebook Like Box on your website. Go to the Facebook developer’s site (see URL below) to input your data and create a box. Code will be generated based on your data and then you (or your web developer) can install it on your website.
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like-box/
(6) Include your Facebook page name/URL on your email signature . Link your signature text to your Facebook Page or use an App to create a custom signature. WiseStamp is a popular App to check out:
http://www.wisestamp.com/
(7) Put your custom Page URL (www.facebook.com/yourpagename) on print materials: business cards, brochures, signage, etc.
Make it easy for people to find your Page. Instead of using generic “Find us on Facebook” text or graphics, spell out your Page’s URL, “Find us at facebook.com/yourPageName”.
(8) Use paid advertising: Facebook Ads. While I encourage you to use as many no-cost ideas as you can, you may find that a small budget set aside for Ads is a very effective way to drive traffic to your Page.
The great thing about Facebook Ads is that they can be very targeted – your posts and Ads will show up for the audience as you’ve defined it. You can also set a very low daily budget (e.g. $5.00 maximum per day) to test out their effectiveness.
(9) Create and share content that helps your target audience. What would make someone become a Fan of your Page? What kind of content would encourage Fans to engage (Like, Comment, Share) with your posts? Put yourself in your target audience’s place as you create your content strategy. Plan your posts with their needs in mind.
Give a few of the above ideas a try and let me know how they work for you!
About Terry League