If you run a Facebook page for business, or even for mild entertainment, you’ll have noticed just how hard it is to increase likes and follows of the page. Way back in the old days, by which I mean around 2012, growing a Facebook page’s ‘fans’ was easy.
Yes, fans. Who remembers fans? Just me? OK, then.
Back then, in simpler times, you merely had to post content to the page and the people who were fans of the page would see it in their feeds. If they interacted with it, their friends would see it in their feeds. It seems as though every bit of content you shared increased your page’s fans, allowing you to grow your page organically with minimal effort.
What a time to be alive!
However, back then, there were barely one billion active users on Facebook. We had so much elbow room. Now that the number has more than doubled, it’s become a little overcrowded. Jostling for people’s attention isn’t quite so easy.
In addition, back in 2012, Facebook didn’t really have a handle on where its money was coming from. It had all of these active users, but how could it squeeze them for every last dime? That was the question. The answer was all of these people who wanted to advertise, and increase their business. They were the ones who were going to fund Mr. Zuckerberg’s latest grey T-shirt.
So now, if you want to grow your Facebook page, you have to pay… mostly.
Here are eight ways you can increase your Facebook page’s likes and followers without paying, until you’re ready to spend a little. You’ll see what I mean.
1 – Complete your page’s Profile and Contact Details
This applies to any online profile, whether on Facebook, LinkedIn or even a dating website. If there are gaps in a profile, it begs questions. Why is his hair colour not filled in? Is he bald? Is he ginger?
For a Facebook page, make sure everything is filled in, such as your website link, social media links, phone number (critical for businesses – if you don’t have one it looks suspicious), ‘about us’ text and anything else you can add.
2 – Add Products/Services
A ‘fairly’ recent addition from Facebook allows pages to add Products and Services, which feature images and a website link for each one. These can then be attached to your posts and videos, so that the posts, when shared and engaged with, also promote your products and services. This is a nifty little feature that slips a little hard sell into the otherwise organic content part of Facebook. The below image shows how products are displayed along with posts.
3 – Invite family and friends to like the page
Do you have any friends? Do they like you? Never mind, it doesn’t matter. From your page, you can invite people to like it. Don’t worry about spamming people, or bothering them with ‘work stuff’. This is your livelihood. If they like you, they should help you out by helping to share your business page.
After all, it’s not like you’re asking them to play Candy Crush or Farmville, is it?
4 – Add a Video Header
Facebook pages have, for a long time, had the ability to feature images as headers. Last year, Facebook introduced ‘Video Headers’. These are incredibly powerful when someone lands on your Facebook page, whether they’re using a desktop machine or a mobile.
5 – Use Facebook Instant Articles
We’ve written about Facebook Instant Articles before, so we won’t go over it again. It started as something reserved exclusively for a select few websites, but has since been made available to anyone. It takes a bit of setting up (something we can help with if you need it) but it’s definitely worth it as it makes your content load instantly on Facebook, no matter who shares it.
6 – Post ORIGINAL content to your site on a REGULAR basis
This should be obvious but, as I had to review why a website wasn’t ranking as highly as a competitor recently and this was the reason, I felt it worth mentioning again. If you want people to like your Facebook page, engage with your content and share it so that more people subsequently like your page, you need to create original, engaging, content.
Even as I wrote that I thought “what’s the point saying this, it’s obvious?” It’s not though, is it? There are still people who wonder why they get nothing through social media when they don’t actually post anything on social media or, perhaps worse, they just repost the same sales advert over and over again.
Would you be interested in seeing that posted on a regular basis? No? Neither would anyone else.
7 – Boost performing posts to a TARGETED audience
OK, I said growing the page organically – but I lied a little. If you have a post that does particularly well, you should give it a little boost to a targeted audience. I mean TARGETED! Don’t just pick a random audience of UK, or Global. Work out who you want, and go for that. Are they based locally? Are they predominately men, women or both? What age range are they? Do they have pets? Are they business owners? What books do they like? Be as specific as you can.
One tactic I like to use is to aim boosted posts at people who already like a similar page – that way you know your content is being boosted towards people who have already expressed an interest in something similar.
This doesn’t have to be expensive either – you can spend just a few pounds. I usually spend £4 on a post, boosted at a highly targeted audience of a few thousand. Any interaction gained from that then spawns organic interaction from their friends. It’s a snowball effect.
8 – Invite them to like the page
Finally, don’t waste your engagement. If your posts have had likes, or any of the emoji responses Facebook now allows, you can turn those post likes into page likes by inviting them to like your page. This can be done from the desktop or your phone. We wrote about this a while ago on our education website Online Learning Academy.
Conclusion
And that’s it. Seven tips on how to increase your page’s likes and followers free of charge, and one where you can pay a little bit. If you do pay to promote your content, don’t forget to harvest the engagement by inviting them to like the page. That way, you can use them to engage with future posts, and grow your page further.
Of course, all of these tips are great, but without shareable content they’re unlikely to make much traction. If you need help with the content, let us know.
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