Updated on 4/20/13 with the most relevant information on how to get increase you Facebook Likes on your fan page.
Are You Sitting There Staring at Your Brand Page Wondering How to Get More Facebook Likes?
This article will take you through a few tips that you can use to increase your Facebook likes and grow your social media presence:
Grow Facebook Likes via Sean MacEntee
Note: Before we get started you need to know that just because you have a lot of Facebook likes doesn’t mean that they have any value. What I mean by this is if you’re not updating and engaging with your community on a consistent basis then you really don’t have a community. Make sense? Good, let’s move on.
Ask Your Friends & Family to Like Your Page
This is a great way to get the ball rolling if you’re just starting out. Your friends and family should be supporting you so don’t hesitate to ask them.
Note: If you’re managing a Facebook account for a client then this not a good idea because those people will most likely not be your client’s target market.
“Reminder. Inviting your entire friends list to your latest clients new fanpage is really bad form! Especially local businesses out of area” – Robert Caruso
Start A Blog and Let Your Readers Know You’re On Facebook
Have you liked SteamFeed on Facebook yet? Click the like button right above here!
See what I did there? Smooth, I know. :) But, seriously you like us Facebook and sign up for our free email updates and newsletter to keep getting great tips from us.
Starting a blog is one of the fastest and most trusted ways to not only keep your customers up to date on your brand but it’s also a great way to land new potential customers. Blogging also opens up the potential to network with other like-minded industry professionals, which could lead to future sales. If you write well, are passionate, and you’re knowledgable about your industry then a blog is right up your alley.
Start A Marketing Campaign on Facebook
For as little as $5 a day you can target the people you want to like your page. You can filter the ad by age, sex, location, and keywords, to ensure you’re targeting the right people. Even though it costs money upfront to get these likes these are all potential customers if you set your filters correctly when creating your ad.
Note: This is much different than buying likes. More on that later. :)
Increase Your Engagement So That Others Will See Your Brand
The more people that like and comment on your updates the more your brand will show up in their timeline, which will allow their friends the opportunity to like your page as well.
How do you increase engagement on your posts? Let me tell you.
1. First go to PostRocket and sign up for a free account (they give you all the goodies in the premium account for 30 days! Don’t worry it converts to the free account after your trial). This is a great tool to help you optimize your Facebook updates.
2. Images have a higher rate of engagement. So find the perfect image to add onto your update.
3. A lot people find that quotes are a big hit with their audience.
4. Make sure you’re posting a good mix of plain text, images, and links. Don’t always post the same thing.
5. You can ask people to share and like you updates (don’t do this too often because it can become annoying quickly).
6. Use the Optimal Amount of Characters In Your Update
My friend Peg Fitzpatrick wrote a great post called “Social media post length? Use the proper size for the win” where she explains the optimal amount of characters you should use in your social media updates.
“Although Facebook has been very generous in their character allotment the most popular posts are shorter. Per Facebook Best Practices: “Posts between 100 and 250 characters (less than 3 lines of text) see about 60% more likes, comments and shares than posts greater than 250 characters.”
7. You can remind (remind is the key word here. If you spam they’ll be consequences) your community that if they want to make sure they get your updates they can check the “Get Notifications,” “Show in News Feed,” and/or “Add to Interests Lists” (Get Notifications seems to be the option that people are leaning towards).
This is what happens when a subscriber adds your brand on an interest list
What happens when I subscribe to a list?
When you subscribe to a list, that list will get added to the Interests section of your bookmarks. When you click on the name of the list, you’ll see a feed of the posts and activity from the people and Pages on that list. You may also see highlights from this list in your main news feed. – Facebook
Run a Facebook Fan Only Giveaway Contest
If you have a product or service that you’re willing to give away and believe your target community would find value in then you may want to run a Facebook Giveaway Contest to increase your likes.
Jeff Bullas wrote a great post called “15 Steps For Creating A Successful Social Media Giveaway Contest” that should help you get going.
Make Sure You’re Using Mobile
You should definitely download the Facebook app on your smartphone and if you’re feeling really crazy you can check out the new Facebook home. Staying connected through mobile will allow you to be able to respond to your fans in real time wherever you are. Or maybe inspiration hits while you’re on the road. Just pull out your phone and post that amazing thought or beautiful sunset for your fans to see.
Use Text Messaging
Do you speak in front of crowds?
You can have people send a text message to 32665 (FBOOK) with the words “like yourusername” (no quotations needed) for them to automatically like your page. For example you could say: “Text FBOOK with the words like steamfeed”
Like Me Like You via BigBuzzMedia
Do Not Do The Following To Grow Your Facebook Page
1. Do not like someone’s page with the expectation of them liking you back. This is lame and frowned upon.
2. Do not buy likes. If you do that’s all you’ll get. You won’t get engagement or sales. It’s a waste of money and highly frowned upon. It’s also against Facebook’s terms of service.
3. Do not update all of your social media accounts all at once. Facebook and hashtags don’t go together.
How Do Facebook Users Feel About Brands Anyway?
Do you have any tips and tricks to increase Facebook likes? I would love to hear them in the comments below!
Latest posts by DJ Thistle (see all)
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I found the biggest success for me in acquiring more Facebook likes is a combination of three things: a Facebook campaign ad, a contest and putting inspiring quotes up every day. One of my posts brought in so many likes and comments: it was a kitten with big blue eyes! Imagine!
Thanks for taking the time to comment and adding in what works for you Sandy! :) I'm not surprised that a kitten with big blue eyes created a lot of engagement for you. You must know your community well.
My pleasure :) Engagement is a tough thing; you can have all the followers in the world, but if they're not actually connecting with you, it's kind of pointless…..
Exactly Sandy! Pointless indeed. :)
Some sound logical advice on this post.
Facebook is a GREAT platform to get on and develop but far too many people are not using it to its full potential.
One thing I would recommend anyone with a page to do is to INTERACT with people on your page. Reply to peoples comments (Tagging them if possible).
Post regular content that will ENGAGE your users. The post makes excellent reference to using images, but short questions are also killer for engagement. (And if you do ask a question make sure you respond!)
Kind regards,
Chris
Chris, Thanks for taking the time to add some tips. I completely agree that interacting with the people in your community is a MUST! If you use your Facebook page as a shout-box then you'll get nowhere.
Thanks, DJ. This was very useful.
Thanks James! I appreciate the kind words and glad you found it helpful. :)
i agree running an ad focused around your target market and location is important and something I am going to consider doing and setting money aside for because advertising isn't all that cheap even if done correctly. however, I feel facebook always tries to make things more difficult with updates… for example, now if you really want to follow a page you have to go click on the page you like go under its "settings" and click "add to interest list" to see the majority of that pages posts. Now getting the majority of your customers and people who already like that page is rather difficult. Fortunately facebook provides you with how many people your post has reached via its fan page "insights" but these vary from time to time. Before the new year my posts were reaching 350+ people and now after the new year under -100. Thanks for the information.
Thanks for taking the time to comment Sam! I think it's the right move to put some money into Facebook advertising. I agree that at any point they can change their algorithm and mess with our brand pages but I see them as trying to strike a balance between users and brands to keep Facebook a place where people want to be on. It's unfortunate because all of our insights took a big hit but what can we do?
I have a client who makes custom graphic facebook covers that are very nice, and have been purchased by a lot of local businesses in her area. Your article gave me an idea of trying some type of give-a-way or contest to promote her cover. That's after she adds a custom cover to her own website. Thanks for the ideas.
Glad you found it useful Boruch! :)
DJ Thistle you made a great article. I have been working on my social media for years now and this article opened my eyes to changes and new strategy. I'm a Realtor and this will help me alot to engage with my customers. Thank you so much
Regards,
Jc
Jc, I'm so glad you found this article helpful. I honestly appreciate you taking the time to comment. Good luck and thanks for stopping by! :)
This is a great info. If you could share some ideas about Facebook Ads then that will be great. How much will it cost for us to get 5000 likes through FACEBOOK ads? Do real people (not inactive users) like your page? Thanks.
Benko, Only real people should be liking your ads. You can really specify your target market so that you can tell Facebook to only show your ad to certain to people. The amount it would cost to get 5000 likes is going to have many variables. However, I've found that a ballpark number would be about $1 per like. Thanks for taking the time to comment. :)
I also learned that too many reminders can get annoying. I limit the reminders to at least 3 times a day to keep people updated with contest stats. I’ve just jumped to nearly 100 likes in about 2 weeks through this method and its still growing because I’m introducing new products 2-3x per week. A new product every time i post.
Thanks for the kind words Stephanie! So glad it's working out for you. :) Keep rocking it!
Found your blog through Google , DJ Thistle your this article about how to get more Facebook likes helped me a lot acquiring more Facebook likes, very much inspiring blog and articles thanks !
That's so great Fraz! Thanks for taking the time to comment. :)
Hmm.. Nice post..I totally agree with everything DJ Thistle has said here.You buy likes; you signup for danger because I've seen some people who bought likes for their Facebook page and lost more than half of those likes within a week. The method of generating likes stated here is just the best.
Thanks for taking the time to comment Giovanni! Glad you found some value in my article. :)
Thanks for the useful tip and the awesome info graphics!
Not sure if this is true for everyone, but I've actually discovered in the last couple of weeks that my posts with images are actually getting less than 1/4 the reach of my text-only updates- which has had a huge impact on my page interactions overall (previously similar images were reaching 4-5x the number of people as my text-only updates).
I feel that the best processes change dependant on the niche of the facebook page. For example a page about a movie will mean more rich media updates – videos, images etc. Where as a page about things like current affairs will mean more links to websites and "news updates".
Its a rather subjective field and will need a lot of trial and error.