by Paul Slack
How to do Community Building on Facebook
In this multi-part series on Facebook marketing for small businesses, we will be walking you through tips, advice, and best practices for getting the most out of Facebook for your business. In part 1 & part 2,we explained why Facebook is an important platform that every small business should add to their marketing arsenal. In part 3, we discussed how to set up notifications to monitor your wall and how to use Facebook graph search to listen for companies and content. In this post, we will discuss doing community building on facebook will get more of your target audience to discover and “like” your page.
For most businesses, your initial goal should be to get 500 or more “likes.” In most cases, once your community grows to about 500 fans, you will reach a tipping point with regard to engagement. Here are some ideas to get you there as quickly as possible.
- Facebook Ads: Facebook is making it more difficult for business to reach all of their followers organically. Facebook ads is a great and affordable way to not only reach your current followers but more importantly reach new followers. Leveraging Facebook ads in the beginning of your social media marketing plan will help you get to your critical mass of 500 plus fans quickly There are two easy ways to leverage Facebook ads for building community.
- Boosting posts. For as little as $15 you can target potential customers in your area to see your content. This will aid in building community and also driving leads and sales. The best posts to boost are offers and promotions.
- Advertising your page. For just $5 per day, you can get your page in from of your exact target audience.
- Encourage engagement: As you’re posting content on your Facebook company page, ask open-ended questions and encourage people to talk. Every time someone posts or comments on your page, whether it’s answering a question you asked or just writing on your wall, a post will show up on their wall which will give you visibility to all of their friends. Considering the average Facebook user has more than 130 friends, visitor wall posts can have a significant effect on your exposure rate.
- Building Community Off Facebook: In addition to everything you do on Facebook, there are valuable ways to build community for your Facebook page in other environments.
- Add “Like” Button Everywhere: One of the most important things you can do is add the “Like” button to your website and blog. This makes it extremely easy for someone with a Facebook profile to simply click the button and “like” your page. Facebook has a free plug-in you can download and install onto your website and blog page. You can also add a “Connect on Facebook” message in your newsletter and email signatures. Each time someone “likes” your page, that announcement will show up on their profile wall which exposes you to all of their friends.
- Send an Email Announcement: Let your customers and prospects know you’re now on Facebook and share what they can expect from liking your page. Explain to them the advantages they’ll receive, such as special promotions, updates about new products and access to Facebook-only events.
Now that you know how to grow your fan base on Facebook and that you need to get to 500+ likes to reach a tipping point, in the next post we will discuss best practices for broadcasting (i.e. taking to your audience).
