As the Community Engagement Coordinator for my company, a headhunting/recruiting firm, I am responsible for our social media campaign. I am in the process of growing our online community, but am having challenges getting people to follow our page on Facebook. What are some strategies others have used?

Hello Samantha, 

Facebook recently held an advertising bootcamp and gave participants a $25 voucher to try implementing some of the strategies we learned on this camp.  If we managed to drive 100 new likes to the page during the month of November, they then sent a further $100 credit. In addition to the $25 we spent $62 of our own money.  We increased our fan base from 205 to 360 through this campaign, and hopefully these are fans who are genuinely interested in what we have to offer.  Once you master the skill of advertising I am sure that the returns would be much better.  I have only just scratched the surface.   My biggest challenge now is to keep them engaged which is a whole new topic I hope to explore with club members!
You can still find all 6 video sessions on Facebook Marketing Solutions – Marketing Talks  LIVE.  http://www.facebook.com/marketing?sk=app_252206491464232  in their Video Library on the RHS.
Have a look, they provide a really good introduction to advertising on Facebook.  Lizzie

Running the Facebook ads is definitely something that drives interested likes to my page. Most people will only click on something they are really interested in so you know you are getting quality likes if you word your ad correctly.

Does anyone work in education marketing? We have various programs to market and I am struggling to find new ways to attract prospective students beyond our standard means. We have a very specific target market but I am looking for ways to expand our reach.

We ran our first add last month with the Facebook bootcamp.  (I still haven’t received our $100 coupon – has anyone else?)  This was very successfull. 

We are a nonprofit and have used a Pledge to Remember to draw people in.  (This is what we used for our ad as well.)  It doesn’t take much effort on the constituent’s part to sign it and then we work to keep them engaged.  It is on our website and on a tab on our Facebook page, which is the default when people visit for the first time.  We can then gather their email address and message them through email with a cultivation series.

Occassionally we run contests as well from our website (http://www.RememberNativeAmericans.org) and promote it on Facebook.   That invariably helps to get people sharing as well. 

Another thing we try to do is ask people to share our posts.  People are more than willing to help out, especially if the post is engaging – which is one thing we try to constantly achieve.  It’s a mix of art and science.    We’re not where we want to be, but our followers are great and I’ve really enjoyed staying connected with them. 

It’s great to have this resource! Thank you!

I just posted a new topic “to like or not to like” and after reading the above posts I’ve already answered my question.

My firm’s facebook page should be set up so people have to “like” it to view it, instead of being an open, public page as it was orginally set up by someone else.

Can I change it from an open page to a “like” it page? I’m sure this is probably an elementary question for most of you, but I’m in the baby steps stage right now.

Thanks in advance!

@samanthacook Hi Samantha, 3 other things I haven’t seen mentioned here but may help you, and sorry if I missed them and they are here already.

1. Advertise content to people who are already fans of your page. Part of the problem with not having enough engagement on your page is that you don’t show up in the news feed. If you aren’t in the news feed your content isn’t likely to get shared by your fans. So, take out an ad for content that you are posting that you find particularly interesting and direct it toward people who are already fans.

2. Like other local business pages or pages that are of interest to your target audience from you page. Then start commenting on your own wall, tagging them with by using the @ in front of their name and comment on something great that they are doing. This way you show up on their page as well, in a non salesy way and their audience will see what you said and possibly click over.

3. Use Socialmention.com to set up alerts for your business name and industry related terms, reach out to those folks on Facebook directly that have mentioned you, offering them your page as an area they can get help for their problem.

These 3 things have worked very well for me in the past. However, I will say that well targeted Facebook ads are probably the biggest factor in growing “Likers” of the pages I have developed.

Hope that helps!!

As FB is a social site has anyone tried being more personal by doing a quick head & shoulders video on FB.
What better way to get to know someone on-line?

Hi @samanthacook,

You can advertise within Facebook with sponsored stories or regular ads. When you use sponsored stories, you can also use your existing fans to gather more fans. So you use your fans kind of ambassadors through your ads.

@samanthacook, 

greatest ever challenge in getting and building huge fan base is building a small one. If you are succeed in building small fan base, it will automatically grow into big one. But again big challenge in building initial fan base is how to attract fans. There are lots of apps for fan engagement. These will help you in attracting fans. 

I’ve found that flat out asking people to like my business page as a status update from my personal profile helps quite a bit.  When asking I try to include a preview of something in terms of content that people may find interesting on the business page, to give them an incentive to check it out. 

I’ve also found that adding pictures of employees or other people that don’t mind being on the page and tagging them helps.  

The biggest challenge I’ve found with the business pages is that you can’t reach out to people on their profiles or tag them unless its a post they’ve already written on.  To solve this problem I’ve tried to do some of that end of the equation from my personal profile. 

I hope this helps! Also@samanthacook

Buy a tablet, use it as an engagement tool, have people “like” your business on Facebook from your tablet. I would think your business holds a lot of Live events with a lot of foot traffic. This method will offer a personable approach and with a little incentive, 90% of the people you ask to like you on Facebook will. Cheers and happy new year.

I like that idea, I might have to use it @theodoresturos

@Samantha Cook have tried having the page like pages you are trying to do business with? You could occassionally post information on their page and tag yourself to get them back to your page. This has worked for me on a sports page I manage.

@joancrocker – excellent advice about posting on walls. If you provide value and good insights without spamming, people will appreciate the feedback and definintely will check you out.

I have success just asking! If people don’t know you or your business, they don’t know to check out your fb page to see if you offer content, ideas, or solutions that they can use to benefit themselves. When they are benefited, they will tell others.

I see Facebook as being similar to a live networking event. You have to get yourself out there, demonstrate you care about your audience, and then ask them to participate with you. If you try to sell, they won’t follow. People don’t want to be sold, they want to buy.

I have also learned FB is the hardest to gain traction on, in my opinion, due to its relational nature. You just have to be patient, ask, and provide good content.

@christinamarie7- Excellent ideas. Thanks for sharing!!

@arty wow, too many friends? wish I had that problem, congrats @kathyweir great advice @joancrocker more good words from Joan! Thanks  @samanthacook grat question, thanks for asking, I need to know this too

@jen_smith1 Thank you for the tips Jennifer!

@sgsrecording That is a great point! I have noticed a higher volume of such “sites” on Twitter lately and receive a lot of follow requests. The only time (if even then) that the mass like might be beneficial in my opinion is if the list is in your field only. On Google+ there is a group for Universities that pertained to some of our programs business pages. Those were very beneficial followers since they share information and repost. 

Here’s an interesting article on viral growth. We need to remember, it’s not quantity, it’s quality. We need to experiment with content to find out what motivates our fans to engage. Easier said than done. What I love about social media is the ability to experiment.

http://socialmediatoday.com/fixcourse/421283/how-virally-grow-your-facebook-fan-page

Here’s an article on using Apps to increase fan engagement.
http://www.wchingya.com/2012/01/facebook-applications-2012.html

@kathyweir thank you for sharing such a great article! I am actually working on adding the Contact Us box to a few pages for testing after reading the article!

Your welcome @Alexandra Briggs. I will start postings all the info I get since we don’t all read the same things. Let me know how that app works for you.

This is a great string! Keep the ideas coming!!!

good pictures  and   humor  seem  to work   with us…..a  really  good  picture of a  really interesting  piece  usually  gets lots of  comments…

one of our  best posts, for interaction ,  was  a picture from  the  shop   of a small  disaster….a  big pile of  broken  dishes on the floor….

one  days  work  got   dozens of   tags and   comments…we had a  big  event and  i took  lots of pictures  of  customers….  they   posed on the  spot  for us…i got  their permission  but not  their names….just  told  them  to  check out our  facebook page……  it  was  great…many of  them   reposted  their pictures   on their pages   ,  lots of  tagging…i put it  all in an  album…garden party people i  think…. it  was at  our annual  garden party….