5 Proven Ways To Grow Your Facebook Fan Page

Social Media Strategy Posted by Guest Author 8 Comments

Today’s guest author is David Schneider. Dave is the cofounder of NinjaOutreach, an innovative new Blogger Outreach software for marketers. He writes about business and entrepreneurship at SelfMadeBusinessman, and enjoys travel.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the value of a Facebook Fan Page.

Groove, a customer support software, made a huge splash when they deleted their Facebook Page.

There number one reason was that it was “embarrassing”:

“We have more than 2,000 customers, 20,000 blog subscribers and many thousands of unique visitors each week. And yet Groove had just under 200 “Likes” on Facebook.” -Alex, Groove CEO

I wonder, if instead of deleting the page altogether, there was an opportunity to simply grow it and turn it into a positive?

So I set out in search of case studies that would supply proven methods to grow your Facebook page that anyone could do, and here’s what I found.

Paid Advertising Still Works

I get it – not everyone likes to spend money, especially on advertising to increase our likes, of which we don’t truly know the value.

But the fact is, paid advertising is a solid strategy for increasing Facebook likes, if that’s what you’re out to do.

In this case study by Jon Loomer, a cornerstone tactic to growing his Facebook page to 3k likes in 6 months is paid advertising.

The best part? He does it all with coupons and doesn’t have to spend a dime.

It’s not altogether difficult to find free Facebook advertising coupons worth a few hundred dollars searching the Internet.

Additionally, even without the coupons, I have read that real Facebook likes can be “bought” for as little as 3 cents a like (if you are willing to put in the time to test different advertisements).

I highly recommend Facebook advertising as an “off the ground” strategy. It’s a way to fill out your page and get some initial traction, that will make the next strategies even easier once you’ve already got some social proof.

Trading Shoutouts With Other Bloggers

A shoutout is when another blogger agrees to mention your page on their page.

Often, the return favor is simply to reciprocate by shouting out their page on yours.

I’ve personally seen a lot of success with this strategy via my girlfriend’s food blog, AvocadoPesto.

Here’s a shoutout she did for another food blogger on her page:

In return, Nosh and Nourish, which has 14k likes, shared hers.

Typically you’ll find success rates between 10% and 20% regarding the number of bloggers you ask, so it’s important to curate a large list of targets. A blogger outreach software, like NinjaOutreach, can help you do that.

Posting Content That Is Guaranteed To Be Shared

Neil Patel recently released a case study where he built a Facebook page of 57k likes in under a month.

His number one strategy?

Sharing content that already proved successful on Facebook.

To do that, he simply went over to BuzzSumo, which ranks to most popular content on the web, typed in his keywords (in this case nutrition), and sorted the results by Facebook likes:

Naturally, these posts got a lot of shares, and when people share articles they open up your page to their network who in turn can now like and follow you.

It’s basically free advertising.

Increasing Engagement Through Posting Frequency

It’s easy to get hung up on likes. More is better right?

However there is another metric that is just as important: engagement

The fact is, the number of people who actually see your posts is related to an internal engagement metric that you can influence.

Simply put – the more engaging your posts are, the most likely future ones are going to be seen by people.

In this case study in Search Engine Journal, the author saw a 219 percent increase in their organic reach in just 30 days and a 171 percent increase in engagement in just 30 days.

The main strategies they employed were:

• Increasing posting frequency from 4 times a day to 12 times a day
• Varying up the types of posts to include a few funny photos every now and again
• Leveraging Facebook insights to understand the top posting times and most engaging content for their audience

Combine this with finding the most shared content on Facebook in your niche and you have a winning strategy.

Remember, you can use Rignite to schedule posts and alleviate the burden of manual posting!

Running A Contest Or Giveaway

One thing that has never changed – people like free stuff.

Contests, sweepstakes, and raffles are an excellent way to grow your Facebook engagement and Likes.

Social intelligence company, Syncapse, found that of the 2000 Facebook users they analyzed, 35% had liked a page in order to participate in contests.

If you’re not sure how to run a contest on your page, the blog here at Rignite has many resources and ideas, not to mention that Rignite itself has a social media campaign tool.

Here are few posts to give you some ideas:

How to Run a Facebook Giveaway to Get More Likes and Comments

7 Recurring Facebook Campaign Ideas to Boost Engagement

Follow the Winners: Great Twitter Contest Ideas

Final Thoughts

Growing your Facebook page is a process, and it’s important to view all of these strategies as stepping stones to get to larger numbers.

For example, if you’re just starting, increasing your posting frequency is NOT going to accelerate your growth, since there is no one there to read your posts:

A solid plan of action is the following:

• Start with a contest or paid advertising as a means of getting some initial traction. Plan on using these strategies to get you to a few thousand likes.
• Move on to shout outs now that you have something of value to offer other Facebook influencers
• Focus on increasing engagement and organic growth now that you have a solid base

How are you managing your Facebook page?

About the Guest Author

David Schneider

David Schneider is the cofounder of NinjaOutreach, an innovative new Blogger Outreach software for marketers. He writes about business and entrepreneurship at SelfMadeBusinessman, and enjoys travel.