The fan page is dead and your Facebook marketing strategy will never be the same. Well, mostly dead. Okay it’s not dead, it just turns out that a lot of people have unrealistic expectations about fan pages and if you want a fan page that’s an effective marketing tool, you need to know how your visitors use them and adjust your Facebook strategy accordingly.
Although people see your fan page when they visit your Facebook the first time, according to BrandGlue 96 out of every 100 people you continue to interact with will never see your fan page again. This is backed up by our Facebook Insights where we have over 2.5 million fans under our all the fanpages we’ve built. So instead fans are more likely to see your posts through their wall or reading your news feeds. So why have a fan page at all? Your fan page may well be one of the first things people see about you and your company, and if the fan page doesn’t get them to Like you and connect with you on Facebook, it may also be the last.
96 out of every 100 people you continue to interact with will never see your fan page again
Now, making a fan page on Facebook for you or your company is too easy — just go to Facebook, click the “Create a Page” link along the bottom of the front page, and follow the simple prompts as presented. Unfortunately this won’t make your fan page stand out. BrandGlue’s stats suggest customisation can double your conversion rate from visitors into followers, and making your fan page work as a marketing tool is something that requires trial and error and testing. The good news is that several tools are available for those who are less inclined to tinker. North Social for example lets you add a lot of custom touches but it comes at the price of $20/month. Static HTML on the other hand has a free option with the ability to implement Facebook’s “like to see”.
The other problem your Facebook strategy needs to cover is how to get people to your Facebook page in the first place. From outside Facebook the usual ways to drive traffic to a site apply. From inside Facebook there are several other options. The first is the hope and pray method where you make your page, Like some related pages, and hope everything works out. This has worked for us in the past with one our client’s profiles at almost 2 million fans, but they had a major brand behind them and significant fanbase. The second is integrating your current online assets with paid ads targeted to your specific demographics of your target audience — for example targeting an 44 year old mother that like Macgyver. These work very well for niche target marketings and well written ads with relevant photos (young women seem to get the most click throughs for all demographics for some reason).If you’d rather spend your time than your money, a great way to engage a lot of people quickly is to create and moderate discussion on your wall through high value engagement. There will be much more on driving traffic and engagement on blogs to come.
Let’s go over the beginners’ Facebook marketing strategy one last time, just to make sure everything’s clear.You create a fan page, drive traffic to it, have a clear call to action to get people to Like your page, continue the conversation online through engagement with them and bring continued value to your fans. You now have fans that are engaged in your brand, products and services and are ready to pay for real value. That it’s so simple, you have to wonder why 99% of Facebook’s 600 million active users (and counting) are doing it wrong. Facebook isn’t just a passing fad because it’s popular, but an amazing tool to improve customer loyalty and gain new business.
Be part of the 1%.
- Create the Fanpage
- Drive Traffic to your page
- Have clear call to action to like your page and/or opt-in to a list
- Engage your fans and encourage sharing
- Do steps 2-4 again, and again and again
