Facebook has tremendous potential. Of the 800 million users globally, there must be millions of your target audience using the social platform too. Moreover Facebook offers great marketing tools for you to get new leads and customers. The platform allows you to 'interact' your way to new customers and also serves as a great way of promoting your new products.

You got all this and have now created a Facebook fan page for your business. But the number of fans is not increasing in the way you would like it to. How can you increase your fan base? Well, we have the ways listed right here.

20 Tips To Increase Your Facebook Fan Following:
We have divided these 20 tips into three neat sections, in sequence of their occurrence and relevance.

Driving Fans To Your Page:
1. Link to your Facebook Page from your website, blog (embed widgets)– There are plenty of snazzy Facebook Social Plugins for you to choose and place them on your website and blog. The 'Like Box' will entice your site visitors to see what you and your fans are up to on Facebook. Live Stream widget is also an interesting application to add, and Facebook users can comment on a live event.

Widgets

2. Add your Facebook page URL in your email signature– Send and receive hundreds of mails everyday as a part of your daily routine? Then reach many people by placing your fan page URL in your email signature. Send across your Facebook Page URL to your friends, partners, clients, customers, and others. Since they know you they will surely explore your page.

3. Place your fan page URL in your personal profile– Have a 1000 friends on your personal profile? Then you must place the URL to your fan page on your profile. Anyone and obviously friends coming across your profile will also get to know about your page.

4. Ask your Linkedin account and Twitter followers to LIKE your page– Have thousands of Twitter followers? Then be really smart in Tweeting your Facebook Page link. Many of them will want to see what it is that you are promoting. Include a Facebook page link in your ‘About Me’ on Twitter to allow your followers to follow the link to the page.

5. Ask your present fans to spread the word– Your few hundred fans can be instrumental in getting more fans. If they share your Page on their walls, then all their friends, will be able to see the Page and many with similar interests may follow the link and LIKE you!

6. Advertise on Facebook increase your chances of being seen– Facebook ads are highly targeted and can get you instant exposure. Users view your ad and can also become a fan. Facebook has many promotional advert systems like 'Sponsored Stories' and 'Ads'.

Ads

7. Ask users to like you in the ad.– You have to create ads exciting enough to give users a reason to LIKE the ads and land on your Facebook Page. Experiment with the copy, heading, images. But be simple, keep the language casual with a friendly tone. The good news is that Facebook may decrease your Cost per click if you have a high click-through rate! Do not send people to your website from the ad, as this way you will not be able to get a like from the ad. Send people to your Facebook Page.

Like Ads

Getting Fans To Like Your Page:
8.Create Vanity URL for your fan page– Once you have 25 LIKES, you create a nice URL. Include your business' name in the same. Try to make it SEO friendly.

9.Create a smashing landing page– Your landing page comes in handy to create a positive, compelling, interesting first impression. The landing page must entice the visitors to LIKE it. It can be funny, daring, bold or mysterious. Whatever emotion you think can lead to a LIKE. Create a welcoming and compelling Welcome tab for your Facebook fan page. You can also include a video in this Welcome Tab.

For example see the interesting animation on the Coca Cola Fan Page-

Landing Page

10. Do not send fans to the wall– Always send them to your landing page. Never to the Wall as it may have comments from other fans which may not seem interesting to other users.

11. 'Incentivize' your landing Page– A smashing landing page design is a great step. But to ensure a LIKE you need more. You need to entice users to like you. Give a people of being 'in the crowd' when they will LIKE your Page. So things like ' Enter to interact with the kings' will make a difference.

For instance see how HP Play has an exciting-'Win' angle to their landing page.

Incentive Like

Keeping The Fans Engaged:
12. Post interesting Content– Do not become beyond boring with just your news, blog posts, business information or sales specials. You have to focus on user engagement.

  • Ask questions to encourage response
  • Post links to a YouTube video
  • Post famous quotes and ask fans if they agree/disagree.
  • Post a photo and ask fans to caption them

For instance, see how this TV Show page has a photo of the lead pair and has asked fans to caption it.

Posts

13. Share Photos and Videos– If you have any new product or event photos or videos, then post them and tag your fans in them. This notifies them and their friends- instant attention!

For instance, this photo put up by a travel agency is topical to an event in history, and generates public interest too. See how they have tagged fans.

Photos

14. Tag relevant industry pages with huge fans in the videos and photos too– So you are an iPhone app developer, and have liked the iPhone page. This page has like several million fans. Tag the page and people will be interested in seeing what video has the iPhone been tagged in.

15. Run contests– This worked smoothly till recently. Still works but may be need written permission from Facebook among other things. But on the page, you can run a contest and ask Facebook users to LIKE you to participate in the same.

For instance see how the McDonalds Page is running a Quest to find the best Mac!

Contests

16. Reward those fans who get you more fans– Give out free coupons or virtual gifts like e-books for fans who refer other fans to your page.

17. Use Facebook Apps to integrate fans– There are plenty of apps you can use from NetworkedBlogs to live video streaming app called Vpype, Fan Of the Week, Booshaka, ContactMe and many many more.

18. Synchronize your fan page with your other social profiles– Link your Facebook Page to Twitter, Digg, Stumble and the like. There are many apps to do the same. So with them, your latest status updates, photos, links on Facebook page will be tweeted and displayed on all other social platforms.

19. Interact with your fans– On Facebook to keep your fans interested, you have to react, respond to their comments and Likes. Make your fans feel that they are interacting with a person who is genuinely interested in making a connection. Answer their queries, appreciate their feedback and praise their contest efforts.

The highly effective trick:
20. Give something for free to people to get them to LIKE your page– Everyone likes to get free things. So, on Facebook this works like magic. Offer free coupons, tickets, books anything you can think of to get more LIKES. The Kodak page ran a LIKE and get a free collage and Facebook photo printout offer. With this free offer, its LIKES increased really fast.

Free

Give all these 20 tricks a shot. For more details and case studies refer to our Bible of Facebook Marketing.

Author

Navneet Kaushal is the Editor-in-Chief of PageTraffic Buzz. A leading search strategist, Navneet helps clients maintain an edge in search engines and the online media. Navneet is also the CEO of SEO Services company PageTraffic which is one of the leading search marketing company in Asia.