Today i’m excited to share with you what i’ve learned about attracting and engaging new customers with facebook.
In this article you are going to learn..
- The 3 steps to launching any facebook fan page and attracting new customers for free
- Why you need to become irresistible and how to do it.
- How to Launch and Get Fans on Your Fan Page Starting Today
- Why you need to be showing in the “top news” section and how to get there consistently.
“the free way to attract new customers on facebook!” – Click to Tweet
Step 1 – Get Irresistible (the setup)
This is the first and most important step in the entire process of attracting customers with facebook. You need to create an irresistible offer that attracts attention from your target market. From this point forward all of your effort will be multiplied by how well you execute step 1. The first step is designed to step away from selling and start to think about attracting. The key to attraction marketing is to know your customer and give them exactly what they want. Here are three ways you can create an irresistible offer on facebook.
- Create a warm custom welcome page
This is a great place to tell your prospect why they should like your page and what you are going to sharing with them in the future if they do. - Run a contest or sweepstakes
Get creative on this one.. I’ve done ipad giveaway’s, vacation packages and more. Just make sure to take a look at the facebook rules before you decide and try to make it relate to your target market. - Give a free gift in exchange for a like or Email Opt-in
This is my personal favorite. I like to pick the biggest problem my target market has and solve it for them in the form of an information article or video. The best part is its free aside from the time it takes to create the content and you can continue to give it away for as long as it stays a relevant.
Action Step -Watch this video on..
How to create a click like to reveal page for free with no designer, no hosting.
Also check out:
The Marketers Guide to Updating Your Facebook Fan Page for the New Timeline Changes
Step 2 – Get Some Fans (the launch)
The goal of this step is simple, get as many prospects, existing customers and fans to join you on facebook right away to create an environment you can grow from. This phase also creates social proof and allows you to attract new fans much easier. Here are tips for getting some fans right away.
- Get help from friends and family
This is just a start but its nice to have a few people that love what you are doing to help you get a few likes and comments. Sometimes that’s all it takes to get the comments rolling in. - Tell all your existing customers
If you have a newsletter or customer list send all of them an email letting them know you are on facebook. Make sure you let them know what’s in it for them. Do this by showcasing your irresistible offer.Here is a great Free Email Marketing System you can use to email your customers using email best practices. - Use in store promotions
Use in store signage, t-shirts, menu insert, whatever is fitting for our business. Make sure to refer to your offer, you want to keep leading with your irresistible offer to give them a reason to go to your fan page. - Add your irresistible offer to your other marketing channels
If you are running a radio spot, toss in a call to action about your offer on facebook - Add your irresistible offer to your website
This one is easy, but don’t just put a tiny facebook logo on your website. Remind them again why they care, lead with your offer.. (starting to get why its important to have a really good offer?) - Post your irresistible offer on your other social media channels like twitter
If you are part of any other social media networks put it out there and get a link on that network to your facebook offer
Step 3 – Get New Fans
The key to getting new fans is to have your status updates show up for the friends of your fan and the fans of other fan pages in your target market. To do this you need to understand how facebook’s edge rank system works.
What is Facebook Edge Rank?
Facebook edge rank is the algorithm that determines what shows up as “top news” for your fans. Although the entire algorithm is not fully public and we don’t know the weight of each factor, there are a few things we do know about how it works. We know that it is made up of 3 factors, here is the formula:
Affinity x Weight x Time Decay = EdgeRank
First I’m going to explain what each of these factors means, and then i’m going to show what you can do to benefit from each one.
Affinity – is the personal interaction score between that fan and the content creator.
- How many times the fan has previously liked, commented or shared any of the creators content.
- How many times the fan has @mentioned the creator
- How many times the fan has interacted with the creator
Weight – is the non-personal interaction score of the content and content creator
- How many comments, likes and shares have been made on the particular update.
- How many comments, likes and shares have been given to the creator
Time Decay – is simply how long ago each “edge” was created. Tip: when I refer to edge I mean factor or advantage for a given piece of content. For example each like or comment is considered an edge and Time Decay applies to each one individually. This is how old posts can re-emerge as top news if it starts to receive more comments.
- How many of the comments, likes and shares are recent.
How to get in Facebook Top News
As you can see the more engaged you can get your fans the more they will “like”, “comment” and “share” your content. The more they engage the better chance your have of getting to top news and getting even more engagement.
How to go viral on facebook
The more your fans that “like”, “comment” or “share” your status updates the better chance it has of showing up to all of their friends as top news as well. When they decide to engage with your updates you once again open that up to going viral to their friends and their friends and so on.
The Goal
This makes your main goal to create as much interaction as you can with your existing fans so you continue to show up in “top news” for their friends, creating new connections with your brand and attracting new potential customers.
How to create interaction on Facebook (the secret sauce)
Now that you know why we are aiming for interaction and engagement, lets talk about all the ways we can get our fans to interact and engage.
- Create a status updates that induce comments.
There a lot of great ways to induce comments on your status updates. You can ask a questions, say something funny, make a controversial statement and more.. These types of status updates stimulate response likes and comments. - Use pictures, videos or links instead of just text.
Video, images and links have been proven to increase engagement and hold more weight in the EdgeRank formula. If you don’t know what to use as a picture consider using an word graphic. You can create free word graphics with wordle.net - Answer your own question in the comments
Answering your own question can give people an example of how they can respond to your question or form an opinion. This not only counts towards your EdgeRank but it helps get more comments. Sometimes breaking the ice is all you need. The more controversial your opinion the better. - Like your own status update
This counts towards your edge rank. - Post daily
The reason I recommend to post daily is that it is a great way to combat time decay and it may also effect your overall page edgerank by having other recent user engagement on your radar. - @Mention someone in your status update or in the comments that might relate to in the update
It is often that when you are making a status update you think of a person in your fan base that you know is going to want to comment on it. Make sure they see it by using the @ followed by their name. This ensures they see it as facebook will notify them. Also make sure you assume the role of your fan page to make sure your @mentions show all the available fans in the list of people you can mention. - @Mention a fan page that is related to your update and has the same target fan base
This is the same idea as #6 but its a bit different as you are @ mentioning a fan page. Make sure you like the fan page before you @mention it or they won’t get the notification. This is great for networking with like minded business owners with similar fans. This opens the door to future promotion benefits for both parties. - @reply to comments with open questions
A great way to keep the conversation going it to replay with another question and don’t forget to call people out to comment back with the @ symbol and then select their name.. this again ensures they get a notification.Tip:If you want to just use the users first name you can, you just have to select their full name first from the drop down menu, then once it appears you can delete back to just their first name. - Revive a good thread
Going off point #8 when your thread starts to get stale on a massive thread you can @replay a bunch of the initial comments with an open ended or funny comment that changes the train of thought. I’ve seen threads start with completely unrelated topics end with something totally different. Don’t forget its just a conversation, conversations take turns. - Just ask them to share
This one is simple but is often forgotten, if your status update can help people or adds value just remind people that they can click the share button. Always remind them to share as the share button will post to all their friends and with give you the most viral value. - Recognize your fans for their contributions
Each time you recognize a fan for their contributions you not only increase Affinity with that fan but you make them feel good. A fan that feels good in your environment is a fan that will refer your page and your business to their friends. - Ask your fans to tag themselves in photos
If you do a live event where your fans are involved this is a great opportunity to get them to tag themselves. This also increases affinity. - Use facebook ads to take it to the next level.
One of the best ways to increase fans is to use facebook ads. Facebook has some key advantages that no other advertising platform has. The first is that you can target your ad placement based on interests which allows you to only show you ads to potential customers. This gives you a huge advantage, cheaper clicks and more conversions for your money. The next big advantage is social proof. You can embed social proof into your ad copy using real people who are friends with those you are targeting. Social proof is one of the most persuasive elements in marketing.
If you are looking to learn more about facebook advertising check out my free boot-camp..
Video 1: How to ethically trick facebook into giving you free ad clicks.
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“the free way to attract new customers on facebook!” – Click to Tweet