No we’re not talking about produce! The fbadz.com Facebook page is nearing 700 fans and surprisingly, despite the name of this blog, most of that growth has been organic. What do I mean by organic growth on Facebook? Well “growth” refers to the steady increase of the number of people that like the fbadz.com page on Facebook and “organic” means that we’re not paying for those likes by running ads. Today I wanted to discuss some ways that people can discover and like your page “organically.” Some of these are direct actions you can take and others simply involve creating content that people will want to share.
1. Publicize your page
Between your email signature, business cards, brochures, print and broadcast ads, e-newsletters, storefront and numerous other outlets you already have plenty of low to no-cost ways to promote your Facebook page. Please, for the love of social media, make sure to actually include the URL of your Facebook page and not just a Facebook badge or call to action telling fans to “Find us on Facebook.” You can tell them to find you until you’re blue in the face, but unless you tell them exactly where to find you chances are they’ll get lost. Your existing customers are always the most likely to connect with you so these are some great places to inform and remind them that you’re on “that Facebook thing” where they already spend hours upon hours of their day.
2. Like Buttons & Boxes
If you have a website, you should have a like box and if you produce content (a blog, press releases, company news) on your website then you should install like and/or send buttons. The like box, which should go on the front page of your website, allows visitors to like your Facebook page directly from your website with just one click of a button. But wait, there’s more! Depending on the settings you choose, the box can also show the stream from your page’s wall and the faces/profile photos of others who like your page. If the site visitor is also logged into Facebook at the time, the featured faces they see will be those of their friends that have also liked the page, playing into the bandwagon effect.
The like button allows users to share your page/content on their wall and the send button allows them to literally send information to their Facebook friends, groups or even an email address. You can even link the like button to your Facebook page. Both the like box and button only takes a few lines of code that your webmaster should be able to easily integrate into your site. (See the Facebook Developers site about social plugins for more info: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins.) The easier you make it for people to connect with your page and share your content, the more likely they’ll be to do it and their friends will too.
3. Use Facebook as your page
Facebook added this feature fairly recently, which allows page managers to use Facebook as their page. Essentially, you can comment, post and like things as “Mom and Pop’s Barber Shop” instead of “Jane Doe.” This is a wonderful feature that allows you to take proactive action to gain exposure for your page on Facebook, but it has quickly turned into a tool for spamming. Please refrain from spamming other pages with irrelevant updates such as “Like our page for Company X because we’re awesome and have nothing to do with this page for Company Y!” If you want to show your support for other businesses by “liking” one of their wall posts or saying something useful and relevant though, then by all means take advantage of this new feature.
4. Featured Like by other pages
Featured likes is sort of similar to link sharing. It is a simple way to give a “shout out” to another page that your company partners with or supports. By showcasing other pages and having them showcase your page as a “featured like” it allows their fans to discover your page and vice versa. Make sure to do this with brands that have a similar audience as yours, but aren’t in direct competition with you.
5. Mentions
Facebook’s tagging feature is a wonderful tool. This allows Facebook users and page managers to create a hyperlink to a personal profile or page on Facebook in the text of the wall post. You do this by simply typing their name and clicking the page/personal profile from the drop down box. Tagging “John’s Coffee Shop” in a wall post allows your viewers to easily click through to their Facebook page. It also means that the wall post will show up on the wall of John’s Coffee Shop page on Facebook garnering more exposure for your page.
Those are just a few of the ways that people can discover and connect with your Facebook page; there are many more. There are also a couple of ways to determine how people discovered your page. First, you can look at Facebook Insights, specifically the “Like Sources” chart under “Users.” Second, just ask! Simply publish a wall post on your page asking fans how they discovered your page. You’ll learn some very interesting and useful information about your fans’ web habits and you’ll also know where to put your time and effort for continuing the “organic growth” of your page. Now go out there and spread some all-natural social media fertilizer.
Post written by Biana Bakman aka @bianalog. To learn more from fbadz.com, become a fan!