How To Get Fans On Facebook

// January 4th, 2012 // Social Media

When you first start out with a fan page on facebook, it may seem like you’ll never get noticed and be able to create a fan base. Don’t be discouraged- follow a few of these suggestions that I recently offered to a friend at The Road To 100K Forum.

1. When you first build a page, you have “0″ fans. Go out and be your own first fan.

2. Invite your personal friends to become fans using the ‘invite friends’ button on the right-hand side of your screen on your fan page. You will only be able to see this option if you are using facebook as yourself and viewing your fan page. If you are using fb as your fan page, the option to invite friends doesn’t show up.

3. Make sure you have a way on your website for people to become a fan at facebook. It’s not enough to just have a facebook ‘like’ button because this type of button doesn’t take a person to your page and allow them to be a fan. It only allows them to ‘like’ your content and share it on their facebook page. That’s great too, but you really need something to pull people into your fan base. The easiest way to accomplish this with wordpress is to use a plugin, or use the code that facebook generates for you for a ‘fan box’ or it’s sometimes called a badge.. see my how-to below..

While logged in to facebook
Go to https://www.facebook.com/badges/page.php
You should see your fan page listed here with a preview of a website badge and some options of types of blogs.. says “Choose where to add the badge” and gives you the choice of Blogger, Typepad or Other. If you like the way the previewed badge looks, choose OTHER and copy the code that pops up below the options. You will use this code on your wordpress blog. If you DON’T like the way the preview looks, choose the text link to the right of your options that says “Edit this badge” to tweek it until it looks the way you want it to look.

Once you have a copy of your code snippet,
Go into to your wordpress admin area, then in your menu options look for
Appearance –> Widgets
In the available widgets, there should be one called TEXT (Arbitrary text or HTML)
Drag that widget over into your sidebar (depending on your theme, you may have a variety of options of where you can put it.. that’s up to you). Add your snipped of facebook code and give the text widget a title if you like. Then press <save>. Go out to your website and take a look. You should have a facebook widget that allows people to become a fan.

This is just one way to get your facebook fan page advertisement on your blog. Some folks prefer just to have a button with a link that takes the visitor straight to their facebook page where they can then become a fan if they wish. There are also some plugins that you can get that do all of the work for you so you don’t have to come up with an image or write any code. It all depends on your personal preferences.

4. Put a link to your facebook fan page in your signature line on your emails and any other online real estate you might have. If you have a twitter account and some followers, invite them to be a fan at facebook and provide the link. Any place you have a profile page (like twitter, linkedin, stumbleupon, digg, youtube..) add a link to your facebook fan page.

5. Go out and start ‘Liking’ other people’s pages who do similar things to your site. Remember to do this logged in as your fan page, not as your personal page. You’ll start seeing their posts and can start commenting and offering support to them, and in return, many times they will share the love and send fans back to you. Plus, their fans will see your comments and come to your page to see what you are doing and many times they ‘Like’ you so they can follow your posts in their feed.

6. On your personal profile page, go out to your Profile and under Contact Information there is a place for your website URL. Add your website if you don’t already have it there, and also put a link to your facebook fan page.

The most important thing you can do to promote your social network page is BE SOCIAL. Go out and fan other folks’ pages, get involved in their conversations and offer constructive information, encouragement and friendship. My experience has been that they will return the favor.

**For more facebook social plugins, visit https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/