These are the only five ways to get Facebook fans. If you have another way, it’s wrong. Just kidding.
These 5 fan-getting techniques are part of what I call my Complete Facebook Marketing System (yet another audacious title that will turn some commenters into haters). The system is a two stage process for getting fans, then getting revenue. I’ll tell you below where to find more info about that if you’re interested.
Here’s what the system looks like:
Yeah, I make cool systematic diagrams. But it’s more than just a pretty picture, because it came from real world testing of what works and what doesn’t. It was derived from proven results on Facebook for multiple clients, both mine and the work of a handful of other Facebook marketing stars in a variety of verticals and including companies like Axe and Hershey’s, but also local companies. And it can work for lead generation, with some modifications.
Here are the five fan acquisition strategies:
1. Turn Buyers Into Fans At Time of Purchase
This is a no-brainer. If they like you enough to buy, there’s a good chance they’ll like your Facebook page, but it requires a little work.
The easiest way is to make a Facebook Like Box the most prominent thing on your thank you/confirmation page.
A more difficult but stronger strategy is to use another incentive to get them to like your page- for example, a contest that requires liking to enter. With a little programming, you can require they fan you and post a message on their wall about you, and then you can add them to your database of contest entrants immediately. This increases your fan-base and gets some word of mouth out about you as well.
NOTE: there’s a lot of controversy about contests and the Facebook Terms of Service; the upshot is that if you talk to a Facebook rep and get yours approved, you can do more. The downside is that you’re not going to have a rep to have that conversation with until you’re spending 5 figures on Facebook advertising.
2. Incentivized Like, or “Reveal Tabs”
Facebook pages have evolved toward better business results. Here are the stages of evolution so far:
- Get a Facebook page
- Create a special landing tab for new visitors who haven’t LIKED the page yet, make that the default tab for non-likers
- Add a special reward (like a discount) to the landing page for Facebook users specifically
- Require people to LIKE the page before they can get the special thing – now the reward is an incentive
The “Incentivized Like” increases the percentage of new visitors that like your page. And if you run Facebook ads, that decreases your cost per new fan.
Matt Monahan coined the term “Reveal Tab” – I call the pre-like tab a “reveal tab” and the post-like tab the “revealed tab”.
And yes, the next stage of evolution uses Facebook Apps.
3. Facebook Ads (Social PPC)
Facebook pay per click advertising is a huge topic (you should check out my free training, “Pay Per FACE: 52 Facebook Ad Tips and Best Practices” for a start on Facebook ads). That’s a good basic intro. And my FanReach course is full training.
Combine good Facebook Ads with the “Incentivized Like” strategy above, and you’re getting the most fans for your money. This combo-strategy can lead to up to 80% of visitors becoming fans.
4. Incentivized Word of Mouth Contests
[See the earlier note about Facebook TOS]
We found that, if you have something (or a variety of things) you can give away every week, you can boost
- Engagement,
- Word of mouth, and
- Fan growth.
If you don’t have anything, look for partners that do have things to give away that want more exposure themselves. Then you both benefit from the conversation and fan growth it drives.
The basic idea is:
“Hey, post X on our fan page wall, and whoever gets the most likes and comments wins a Y.”
X is the conversation, and Y is the prize.
- The conversation could start with any question relevant to your offerings, benefits, or audience.
- You can combine it with a survey need you have.
- Or most ninja of all, make them think about the core desire or dream your offering fulfills for them.
- Or the easy one: “Tell us why you think you should win the prize.”
You’ve told them they’ll win if they get the most engagement, so you’re incentivizing them to post and then tell all their friends to come to the wall to like and comment, and what do those friends have to do first? LIKE your page. 😉
5. Email Transformation
This is a trick I got from one of my Social Media Expert interviewees. It also might be a hole that Facebook will plug one day, so now’s the time. Depending on the size of your email list and how you value your social media list, it could be worth thousands of dollars to you.
Some say a Facebook fan is worth twice what an email subscriber is worth, because you have to ability to reach their friends too. It’s much easier to get a fan to bring their friend in than for an email subscriber to get you another email subscriber. And the value of a fan or email really depends on what you do with them. If you’ve made money from your email list, you may be able to make a rough guess what a Facebook fan is worth to you.
There are other more obvious wasy to turn emails into fans:
- Include Social links in all your emails
- Send an email quarterly about your Facebook page and tell them about your “Incentivized Like” discount
Then What? How Do We Make Money From These Fans?
That’s the next step. There are four or five primary strategies for that, but it’s beyond the scope of this article.
If you’d like more, check out FanReach. It’s a little bit easier to grasp than just reading all this text. If you hate reading, you might like that better 🙂
