Are you still searching for that magic bullet for your Facebook page so it would become very popular over night, have thousands of fans that will like your every post and click any link you post to your timeline?
So am I.
But based on my experience with everything I ever did in life, when you start with the basics – you get results. That is exactly what I am doing now and seeing results.
I am sure a lot of you are trying to implement some “advanced” Facebook tips, even paying for books and courses on the topic, just to realize it isn’t working. Hey, I bought several Facebook courses too, wasted money for the most part because after reading them all, I always realize I can’t not do anything until I’ve covered the basics.
So here is a crash course in Facebook for Pages that will give you a strong foundation to build upon:
Getting more likes
- Invite friends – make sure they are somewhat interested in you, what you do or your business. Don’t invite them all and technically spam them!
- Email your list – when you create a Facebook page for your business, email your list, your previous customers and any other contact that may be interested in it. The only item in the mail should be your new Facebook page so they don’t get distracted with something else.
- Customize your Facebook URL (if you haven’t done it yet, you can do it here) – That way, you can create a short memorable URL for your Facebook page and print it on your cards, send it in emails as signature and just tell people what it is without them forgetting it!
- Use Ads! Yes, I said it. Pay for your marketing. You can not do everything for free and if there is one thing I recommend paying for it is exposure on Facebook.
As an example, I paid for some ads and sponsored stories on Facebook the other day (fitness related page) and $3 bought me more than 4.000 views of the ad and story, 16 new fans and increased page engagement (more comments and likes on individual posts). It was a very well spent $3. You can’t afford it? How much is your Starbucks coffee? $5? - Create events – there are so many different events you can create to promote your page: live Q and As, product launch, live interviews…
- Polls – you have an option to create polls (questions) on your page and you should definitely use it, if you want to make it fun, ask a question that is related to your business but let people add answers, don’t limit it to those you put in. Ask people to share it with their friends as well.
- Page cross promotion – partner with non competing but related businesses to cross promote each other’s pages. If you own a bakery that specializes in birthday cakes, the perfect match for you would be a party supply store, for example. Think outside the box
How often to post
There is a big discussion about this and no one has the precise answer. Most Facebook “gurus” will tell you to post one or two times a day, but I don’t necessarily agree with this. Why? Because my experience is different. I post more often on some pages and it works great.
As a user (not a page owner) I “Like” some pages that post 30-50 times a day and fill out my news feed but I never unliked them, they actually motivate me to engage with the page even more. So test and don’t take anyone’s numbers for granted until you have your own!
What to post
General opinion last few months was that images get the most engagement on a page. I have great success with images too so I will agree with this but there are pages that are killing it with only text status updates.
That is another thing you should test for yourself. It will depend a lot on what niche you are in. Some niches will do better with images, some with videos and some do great with text status updates.
Start testing and go through your page insights to learn what works and what doesn’t. That will steer you in the right direction. From time to time do something that isn’t very common for your page and see how people react to a different medium.
Great way to get the text updates to work is posting “fill in the blanks” posts. People love taking part in these 
And when it comes to photos, asking for a caption is usually a great way to get the engagement up.
Conclusion
You see, these are the things you have to master before moving ahead and without these basic steps, your page won’t grow. You didn’t learn to run before you learned to walk, so instead of always looking for the shortcuts, implement the basics for strong foundation and you will be able to build a strong Facebook presence.
Two things I would love for you to do:
- Tell me if you are you using Facebook ads?
- Share your most effective Facebook page tip.
About Brankica Underwood
