Strengthening Your Fan Pool on Facebook

For some people, Facebook is a great social media tool for business and, for others, not so much. In fact, growing a pool of fans and followers on Facebook can be quite challenging at times. However, it is well-worth putting forth the effort because the payoff can be great for your business. Fans and followers are important because they help boost your credibility and reputation.

What was is not the same anymore

If you are just starting to build your web presence or you have recently started to add new pages to what you already have, you may be experiencing some issues with increasing your number of fans. One key to having success with Facebook is to plan your strategy carefully and then execute that strategy until you start to see the results that you are hoping for.

One thing that is certain is that your Facebook fans are critical to your success. That is exactly why your pool of fans is so important to your business. As you are considering what to do in order to successfully grow your group of fans, there are several logical steps that you will want to take, which will help you to get where you want to be.

• Determine exactly who is your target market: Before you can do anything else, you must have a clear understanding of exactly where your brand focus should be. That will affect everything that you do with regard to branding and strategy. Of course, once you have identified your target market (which consists of your target audience members), you will need to wrap your mind around the likes and dislikes, needs, wants, etc., of those members so that you can strategize appropriately for them. After all, if you are not able (or not willing) to give them what they want and need, they will not stay with you.

• Speak their language: After you determine exactly who your target audience members are and you have successfully gotten inside their heads, the next thing that you will need to do is to speak their language. If the tone of your materials is not appropriate and clear for them, they will lose patience and walk away. The appropriate tone will go a long way to building trust between you and you will also appear more credible in their eyes. Both trust and credibility are critical to your success.

• Engage them in ways that work for them: Because all human beings are different, they don’t all necessarily respond the same to a particular type of engagement. They react differently. The only way to come up with a winning engagement approach is to try it with each person and then determine if it works with him or her. The types of engagement that you may want to try are posing a thought-provoking question, sharing an interesting graphic, running a contest, conducting a survey, or making a provocative comment. One (or more) of those should work for every person with whom you want to be involved.

• Make the commitment: Just like anything else that is worth having, social media engagement requires a commitment and a clear message that you are in it for the long haul. Facebook is certainly no different. If you are to succeed with Facebook, you will have to spend the time, make the effort, and nurture the relationships that you have built with other people. It will not necessarily (in fact, probably not) require that you spend a great deal of money. However, it will serve you well to remember that nothing in life is free.

• Be a human being: The main reason that your relationship with other people is so successful is that you are human, just like the other person. That means that you connect on an emotional level and you react emotionally to each other. It is very important for you to remember that relationships take time to build. Trust takes time to establish and credibility doesn’t happen overnight. You will need to be patient and to keep at it until you have reached a point with the other person that really works for both of you. 

• Be consistent with your postings: It is very important that you maintain consistency when it comes to your content. People need to have something good to look forward to and they need to see something from you that you know they can rely on. That means that you post on the same days of the week and at the same times on those days. Of course, if you see that what you are doing isn’t working, you will need to revisit when you are posting. You will hopefully (sooner rather than later) come up with a formula that works for you and for your target audience members.

• Pay attention to analytics: Analytics are critical to your professional success. You can’t just walk around in the dark, not having any understanding if what you are doing is working for your business. If something isn’t working, you need to make an adjustment until you find something that does work. The fact is that not all businesses use the same approach. In fact, the same approach will not work for all businesses. Only you can determine which approach works for your particular business.

Conclusion

Facebook is an important social media tool for business. However, it is important to remember that you can’t do anything on Facebook (or any other social media channel) without fans and followers. It is also important to remember that you want your fans to be engaged, not just random. Although you are loyal to the fans that you have already, it is still a good idea to increase your Facebook fan pool so that you are able to bring your business to the next level. Constant growth is a must.

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