If you build a Facebook Page, will Fans come?
This is the great hope for many businesses. However, fans do not magically appear from Facebook. “How can I get more fans to my Facebook page?” is the question I most often get asked by store owners.
A Hub Spot study reveals the importance of building your Fan Base on Facebook. It found that Facebook Pages with over 500 fans up to 1,000 fans have 3.5 times more traffic than pages with less than 500 fans. Additionally, it showed that Facebook Pages with over 1,000 fans have 22 times more traffic than pages with less than 500 fans.
The average Facebook page has 130 fans. So, if you have 500 fans you are well above average and your traffic increases. However, there is a tremendous jump in traffic on Facebook pages with over 1,000 fans.
It’s the rich gets richer concept; the more fans you have the more important your page appears to Facebook. The more important your page appears, the easier it is to get your status updates into your fan’s news feed.
The more people receiving your information, the greater the chance more of them will interact with you. When more people interact with you, the greater reach you have as their friends and friends of their friends see your information. The more your fans interact with your page, the more Facebook will show your status updates. The Rich Get Richer! You have to build your Fan Base if you want to be successful on Facebook.
Here are 18 ideas for you to get more fans for your Store’s Facebook Business Page.
1. Invite Your E-mail List – If you have an e-mail list (and you should) include in your newsletter that you have developed a new page on Facebook and to Like it. It is always easier and cheaper to get a current customer back into your store than it is to find a new customer. So first target your existing customers. Send out an e-mail, encourage them to like your page and become involved on your page. Ask them to write a recommendation of your store. The people on your e-mail list will be your best fans. Your good customers will be the most likely to engage with your status updates and write positive reviews. If you have a large e-mail list, which I hope all of you do, this is a great way to get your Facebook page going.
2. Add to Your E-mail Signature – Add a link to your Facebook page in your e-mail signature. Down at the bottom of your signature under your name and your store information put, “Like us on Facebook” and a link to your Facebook page. The people you know and that interact with you through e-mail will also be the type of Fans you want on your Facebook page. You’ll be surprised how many times someone clicks the link and likes your Facebook page.
3. Displays in Your Store – Go to Kinko’s or Office Depot and have a little sign made up with the Facebook logo. Just having that Facebook logo is sometimes enough, but underneath the logo you can also put the URL to your Facebook page. Make several signs and add to your window display, place in your show case, and place on the counter where you take-in repairs.
4. Use QR Code – On your store display use a QR code. QR codes are the little square box similar to a bar code that is made to be scanned by a SmartPhone. You can get a QR code made for free, just search in Google for “QR code generator” and you’ll find many websites to visit to have it made for free. Type in your URL to your Facebook Page and it generates the QR code file to take to the printer to have printed on your sign. People with a SmartPhone can scan that code and they will automatically be taken to your Facebook page right on their cell phone while they’re standing in your store.
5. Use Print Media – Any time you create advertising for your store include the Facebook logo and your URL. You can also include your QR code. You may want to include the words “Like us on Facebook.” If you’re doing a mailing, a postcard or a brochure, include your Facebook page information. If you use a billboard in town include the Facebook Logo. You don’t always have to put your URL. As cars pass by a billboard they may not search for you as they are driving, but if they see the logo the next time they are on Facebook they may search for your store. Any print advertising that you do, include that you have a Facebook page.
6. Add to Your Sales Slips – The next time you have your sales slips printed, put at the bottom, “Like us on Facebook” and your Facebook URL. Your existing customers make the best Facebook Fans.
7. Welcome Tab – A Welcome Tab is a custom tab that you add to your Facebook page. A Welcome Tab is the landing page when someone comes to your Facebook page for the very first time. That’s why it’s called a Welcome Tab, you welcome the visitor in. On your Welcome Tab you want to encourage the new visitor to click the Like button. Also include information about your store, your location and phone number.
Statistics have shown that having a welcome tab that encourages new visitors to like your page, will increase your fan count by 50 percent. Fifty percent more visitors to your page will Like your page if you have a Welcome Tab than if you don’t have a Welcome Tab. If you haven’t created a Welcome Tab on your page yet, that’s one thing I encourage you to do right away.
8. Link From All Your Websites – You can have a link on your website that says “Like us on Facebook” with a link to your page. You can also have a Like button on your website that visitors can click and become a fan of your Facebook page without ever leaving your website.
9. Link From All Social Media – If you have a Twitter account, put a link to your Facebook page in your profile. Post tweets to “Like us on Facebook” and put your Facebook page URL in the tweet. If you have a LinkedIn, Google +, or YouTube account be sure to include links to your Facebook Page in all those profiles. Include links in any post you make from those accounts as well. If you have a blog, blog about your Facebook page. Put in the sidebar of your blog the Like button or text to “Like us on Facebook” with the link to your Facebook page.
10. Link From Your Personal Profile – After you have created your business page, go back to your personal profile and edit your profile. In the section where you list your website, put a link to your store’s page on Facebook. Then when your friends are interacting with you, or anyone looks at your profile information, they will see the link to your business page for your store and can go directly to your business page from your profile. This is one of the most overlooked resources Facebook provides you to build your Fan Base.
11. Suggest To Facebook Friends – Suggest to Facebook friends is not as effective as it used to be. Two or three years ago this was the best way to get your friends to be fans of your Facebook page. It doesn’t work as well today, but it never hurts to send your friends a page invite. On your page click on the “Suggest to friends” link and your friend list will appear. Go through your friends list and check off everyone you want to send the page invite to, and Facebook will send them out. Don’t over do this and annoy your friends, but sending them a page invite once is more than appropriate. If Your Friends Don’t Like Jewelry You Need New Friends.
12. Use the Share Button – The share button on your page is fairly new and generally more effective today than the Suggest to Friends. When you click the Share button on your page, it generates a Status Update with information about your page. You can add a comment to it and the Status Update goes out to all your friends.
13. Status Updates (from your Profile) – When you make status updates from your profile, go ahead and talk about your page, “We created this new page, check it out and Like us on our Facebook page.” You want to keep an 80/20 balance on your profile updates. That is 80-percent of your status updates should be personal and only 20-percent about your store. So don’t talk too much about your Facebook page and your store from your profile, but you can talk about it. In the status updates that you send out to your friends, put a link to your page so they can go there and like the page. This is another great way to reach out to your Facebook Friends and convert then into Fans.
14. Facebook Comments – Another way you can reach out to your friends is when they make a post, you comment and put a link to your Facebook page in the comment. Now you want to be careful about this, so that you don’t look like a spammer. Only link to your page if your comment relates to the content of the post. For example if someone made a status update, “I’m not sure what I’m going to buy my wife for Mother’s Day. Anybody got a suggestion?” You can comment and say, “Yes, we have a lot of suggestions. Check out our Facebook page,” and link to your page. Those comments go back out to all your friends, and to all the friends of the person who made the original status update. Hint: You don’t have to wait around for someone to make a post for you to comment on. Ask a close friend to make a post setting you up for your comment.
15. Facebook Ads – Facebook ads are a great way to reach out to your community and tell people on Facebook about your store. Facebook ads can be very inexpensive; you can do it as cheaply as $1 a day. You don’t have to spend a ton of money on Facebook ads, but with just a little bit of money you can have a great reach telling people about your page. The great advantage of Facebook ads is demographic targeting. Facebook has all the information in everyone’s profile for you to pinpoint the exact group of people to which you want to target your ads.
16. Facebook Promotions – You can run many different types of promotions on Facebook. You can have special offers or a coupon where Facebook users have to like your page to get the coupon. They can print the page or just show it to you on their cell phone. You can have an e-book they can download after they Like your page. You can announce in-store drawings with a form to fill out and bring into the store. There are many different ways you can have promotions on your page to get people to become fans and/or come into your store.
17. Run a Contest – A contest on Facebook is where you have different people enter and then people vote on those entered with the winner receiving a prize. For example, for Valentine’s you might have couples come into your store in January to have their picture taken. You then put the couples’s picture on your Facebook page and run a contest for the best looking Valentine couple, or the Valentine couple most in love. Their picture is displayed on your page along with all the other couples, and whoever gets the most votes between February 1st and February 14th wins a prize. It could be some jewelry, maybe a watch for the guy and a necklace for the girl, or maybe a romantic weekend away at a nearby resort or hotel. This gets all the people that enter the contest to tell all of their friends to go to your page to vote for them. Of course they have to become a Fan of your page before they can vote.
18. Run a Sweepstakes – A sweepstakes is where Facebook users can go to your page and enter the sweepstakes (after they become a Fan of your page of course). Then there is a drawing for one winner to receive a prize.
You need to be careful when running Facebook contests, or sweepstakes. Facebook has strict rules about running a contest or sweepstakes. If you violate those rules, Facebook can delete your page without warning.
In addition, the fans you gain from these are not always the best fans to have. If you run a contest you will get many people to Like your page, but most of them are only interested in helping their friends win, and don’t care about your store.
If you run a sweepstakes to win an iPad, I guarantee you are going to get a ton of new fans to your page. The problem is they’re all going to be interested in iPads and electronics and don’t care about jewelry. There are people that spend all day on Facebook searching for the word “iPad,” and every time they see an iPad they go and enter the contest. Even if you are not targeting your advertisement to them, they can still find your sweepstakes on Facebook. They will enter just to win the iPad, and could care less about what the page is about or what product you are selling; they just want the iPad. They probably are not going to interact with your page and most likely will not come into your store to buy your jewelry. Basically they are worthless fans.
The best way around this is to keep the contest, the sweepstakes, the promotion, the coupon, whatever you do, related to your store. Make it something they have to come into the store to receive because, after all, that’s the ultimate goal you want, getting them into your store.
Don’t Ever BUY Fans
There are companies out there that will tell you, “We can get you X number of fans for only X number of dollars.” They will get people to like your page, and they are legitimate people on Facebook. But all those fans are interested in is the money. The person will log onto Facebook and become a fan of a list of pages and they get paid so much per page that they become a fan of. Those fans don’t care about your page; they don’t care about your products or anything about jewelry, they’re just being a Fan-For-Hire. These are not the type of fans you want. They will do your page more harm than good. If any company tells you they can buy you fans don’t walk away from them – run!
To learn more about Facebook and how to use it to market your jewelry store, Brad and Debbie Simon have developed a new website “Facebook for Jewelers” at http://FBforJewelers.com. This website contains Step-By-Step video tutorials, a library of training articles, a quarterly newsletter, webinars, and more. It’s everything you want to know about Facebook, but did not know who to ask!
