There are plenty of brands which get excited to start off with their Facebook presence as soon as they have a look at companies that have had success with it such as Starbucks and Target. Even though your practice might not reach millions of fans initially, there are still targeted steps which you can take to grow your Facebook following effectively.
1. Utilize what's already at your disposal
Probably one of the main reasons why these national brands are so successful when it comes to social media is because they've already had an enormous following even before setting up these accounts. There's a chance that a Facebook page isn't the first interaction you'll have with the customer base so use your already established client channels such as email newsletter and website to drive them to your new Facebook page. This can be as simple as putting up a link on top of your web page or including it within your email signature.
2. Use the Facebook tools already there
The Facebook interface itself provides you with an enormous amount of opportunities which you can use to engage with your community as soon as they've decided to become fans. One of the first things you can do is to ask questions via the poll feature on Facebook. You'll have to remember that people aren’t comfortable interacting with brands all the time so try not to overuse this feature. Also you should ask multiple choice questions so that your fans are able to answer them quickly and without much hassle. Ask the engaging type of questions that you'd respond to yourself and don't just use this as a target for market research. There are also paid tools out there to take advantage of which give your fans special discounts.
3. Initialize different contests
One other reason why these brands are starting to see success on Facebook is this. You can use an application such as Easy Promos to create contests which your fans can enter. Some of the ideas include gathering their name and email (which is valuable information to get started on a newsletter with) and then giving them a chance to win something in return which can also be simple. Make sure it's not delicate enough for them to be put off and remember that these offers have to be valuable in order for people to feel comfortable enough to share their personal information with you.
4. Express
An essential part of maintaining a successful page is to express yourself well. Plenty of companies are literally shouting at people to like them on Facebook without even providing the slightest incentive as to why they should. So instead of just asking them to like your page tell them what they'll be getting out of it in the process.
5. Post relevant stuff
Even though it might be tempting at first you shouldn't just talk about your practice on your Facebook page. Make sure you show that you care about your community events and local news and also in case your city is voting on whether or not they should put fluoride in the tap water to write a blog post explaining what this could mean for them. And if you don't have the time to write on your own then make sure to post a link to a local news story about it. The key is to be helpful.
6. Your page has to be tagged from the personal profile you use to login
It has to be made easy for your friends on Facebook to like your page. And just as we all know, pages aren't being seen that much in the news feed so what are page owners to do?
Occasionally you should consider posting about your business on your personal page. And if you decide to tag your business page then type "@" and then start typing the page name until you're able to select it from a drop-down which appears. That way people who actually look at your status updates are able to see and easily like it right from the update.
7. Link your personal profile to the page
This is one of the simplest things to do out there, yet I still keep seeing people mess it up. If the users are searching and have managed to find your personal profile on Facebook then you'd want to make it as easy as possible for them to find the business page that goes along as well.
Also as soon as people list where they work it's not actually linked to their Facebook Page but a strange "Community Page" is created that has the same name as well as a suitcase icon. Then people can start liking that page instead of your real Facebook page.
All you have to do is to delete the actual community page from the Word and Education section which you can find in your about area and then use it to add the correct Facebook page.
8. Your content has to be updated
Regardless of the type of content you're updating with on the regular, whether it'd be contests, blog posts, questions, etc, you’ll have to make sure to change it up frequently so that you can measure what works and what doesn't for the page engagement. Posting on the regular is also going to provoke your fans to come back more frequently to see what's going on.
9. Add your link within your email signature
Are you aware of the amount of emails you send out on a daily basis? This isn't rocket science actually. Consider this as an interesting tip because nowadays the majority of email programs such as Gmail have made it easy to customize your email signature with some clickable icons.
10. Monitor your stats
There is a free tool Facebook provides you with called Insights which shows you exactly what your posts should do, and what not to. You can get to it by visiting your admin panel and seeing the way people react to the individual posts. Also you might find that on average there are more likes and comments on posts which include photos or content covering certain subjects. Pay close attention to the amount of success you're getting and then use the data to recreate it.
Finally, gaining a larger following on Facebook might appear to be a tiring task at first, however, if you follow these key tricks you should be able to see some amazing improvements within three months as well as success in your community.
Image courtesy of [jscreationzs] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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