It’s no secret that having a brand presence on Facebook is an essential part of a modern-day business strategy. However, while most businesses have accounts on the social network, many struggle with building a following.
If this sounds like you, don’t worry. Whether you’re building a following from scratch or looking to grow your current Facebook following, we have some creative tips and tools for you to do this quickly.
1. Promote Your Facebook Accounts on All Channels
The very first step to attracting more followers is to promote your Facebook groups and pages!
You want your social links to appear wherever you have a brand presence, so you can increase the odds that people will follow you. Here are some places to include these links for high visibility.
Invite your email subscribers to join in on the fun on your Facebook accounts. You can send a dedicated email, or you can include your social buttons in the footer.
Including these buttons in the footer of your email template is an easy way to ensure your subscribers will see them every time they open your emails.
Website
Customers want to find businesses on social media so they can keep up-to-date with discounts, new arrivals, and sales. This is excellent news for those looking to grow their Facebook following with little effort!
Make your social buttons as easy as possible to find. You can include these in your website’s footer, but ideally, you should also place social buttons near the top of your page. Your customers will never have to scroll down to see them.
Marketing Materials
Your promotional efforts don’t have to be exclusive to digital means. If you’re a brick and mortar business or a pop-up shop, you’re already producing marketing materials to encourage foot traffic to your location.
Use these materials to boost traffic to your Facebook page or group as well. T-shirts, flyers, and business cards can all include social links or a call-to-action to encourage people to follow you.
Social Accounts
If you have an Instagram business account, you’ll want to invite your audience to join in on the fun on your Facebook page and group as well. You can tease exclusive discounts, sneak peeks for new arrivals, or Facebook Live sales to motivate them.
Cross-promoting works between Facebook pages and Facebook groups, too. If you have a group, make sure that it’s linked to your page so your customer can easily find it!
2. Run Facebook Ads
Perhaps the most obvious solution to getting more followers is to run Facebook ads. Paid ads guarantee that your Facebook page will be seen by a larger target audience than you would naturally.
While any ad will get your page more visibility, engagement ads are specifically designed to promote interaction on your page. If users find the content in your ad interesting, they’ll most likely engage with it and follow you.
3. Use Facebook Live
Facebook Live video is the holy grail of organic reach. These videos show up more often in the newsfeed, can captivate your audience 6x more than pre-recorded videos, and allows a two-way, real-time dialogue between retailers and customers.
You can use this to showcase your new arrivals, demo your products, run a Facebook Live sale, or even to chat with your tribe.
Facebook Live is a great way to boost your engagement rates. In turn, it will increase the chance that Facebook will favor your video and distribute it to others who may be interested in following you.
4. Take Advantage of Facebook Groups
If you haven’t created a Facebook group, what are you waiting for?! Facebook groups are an excellent way to build trust, encourage engagement, and motivate people to follow your business on Facebook.
While Facebook pages provide a space to showcase your goods and services, Facebook groups offer a space to build communities around brands. They are essentially niche forums for like-minded people. In your case, this niche forum is about your business and brand culture.
Unlike Facebook pages, you control the privacy settings of your group. The easiest way to encourage people to join your group is to change your group settings to private. Then you can tease exclusive benefits for joining. First dibs on new arrivals, discounts, and/or sales are typical perks for members of private branded groups.
5. Run Contests & Giveaways
Contests and giveaways are a thrilling way to excite customers and drive specific behaviors, such as liking, commenting, sharing, and inviting others to your page or group.
You can give away anything from accessories to Starbucks gift cards to high-end designer bags. However, prizes don’t need to be expensive. Most people will participate in contests and giveaways for their chance to win small prizes.
One of the most effective ways to use contests is to ask customers to tag themselves in a photo using your products for a chance to win a prize. This UGC, or user generated content, is an easy way to catch the attention of their friends and family. Since your business is tagged, those that see it can easily find and follow your business.
6. Combine Social Media with Selling
Selling on social media is not new. However, the past few years have given rise to the comment selling phenomenon. Comment selling has dramatically boosted engagement, along with organic reach, for those that use it.
Comment selling is a method of selling where retailers ask shoppers to comment to buy items on their social media posts. With an automated comment reader and invoicing system, like CommentSold, shoppers receive an automatic comment reply as well as an invoice through Messenger, and email.
When people find your Facebook page or group, and see others commenting to buy, they naturally want to participate as well. Comment buying demonstrates social proof of brand trust and a product’s general appeal.
Selling through Facebook can also give you other opportunities to turn interested onlookers into followers. As mentioned earlier, offering discounts and rewards can incentivize people to follow you.
Comment selling makes those rewards even more immediate. Instead of leaving Facebook to sift through a website, they can cart an item and snag a discount directly through the newsfeed.
The resulting instant gratification drives sales, engagement, and increases the likelihood of them following your page or group.
To supercharge your comment selling efforts, implement a loyalty and referral program. Loyalty programs will encourage repeat purchases (more comments), while referral programs will motivate customers to tell their friends about you and your Facebook storefront.
The Takeaway
Growing your following doesn’t have to be a difficult task. Follow these suggestions to drive organic reach, grab your audience’s attention, and rope them into following your business on Facebook.
Whichever methods you choose, make sure to post consistently in a way that drives engagement. Over time, increased engagement can turn passive onlookers into Facebook followers.
For best results, create a social media marketing plan to create valuable content that resonates with your ideal audience.
