Ten Ways to Promote Your Facebook Page

I get asked this question in my seminars a lot, so I thought I’d put my answer into writing for all to see.  Once you create a Facebook page, how do you get word out to potential fans?  Here are some ideas:

1) Give Your Facebook Page a User-Friendly URL: You can give your Facebook a customized URL, such as www.Facebook.com/NewEnglandSocialMedia, to make it easier for people to remember.  Simply go to www.Facebook.com/UserName to register your URL.  (Note: You must have at least 25 fans before you can register a customized URL.)

2) Add a Facebook Fan Box to Your Website: Facebook recently introduced a new-and-improved widget that you can incorporate into your company’s website, called a Fanbox.  The Fanbox allows people to become a fan from your site, see other fans and/or see updates from your fans.  Set up your Fanbox here, then paste the code in your website.

3) Suggest the Page to Your Facebook Friends: Beneath your Page picture, there is a link that allows you to recommend your page to your friends.  Your friends receive these Page Suggestions in the “Requests” section of their Facebook Home page.

4) Run a Facebook Ad Campaign: You can create a Facebook advertising campaign by launching the Ads and Pages application (in the lower left corner of your browser).  Click the green “Create an Ad” button and follow the instructions to create an ad that targets your potential customers.  Be sure to click the link that says “I have something on Facebook I want to advertise” under the Destination URL box and select your page from the drop-down menu.  Advertising will cost you money.

5) Add a Facebook Badge to Your Email Newsletter: If you have an e-mail newsletter that you regularly send out using a service like Constant Contact or MailChimp, incorporate a linked Facebook badge.  Facebook is rather particular about the verbiage and graphics you use to promote your page, so use the badges you find here and follow the guidelines found here.

6) Tag People in Photos, Videos and Notes on Your Page: If you want word about your Page to spread, you need to constantly update it with new content.  This content shows up in the newsfeeds of fans, where they can interact with it by commenting or approving of it.  The more your fans interact with your Page’s content, the more likely it is to show up in the Highlights section of friends of fans.  This is how the content spreads virally, encouraging new people to become fans.

You can help this along even further by posting photos, videos and notes and “tagging” or identifying people in them, increasing the likelihood that these items will be discovered and shared.  Click on the item you want to tag, then click the “Tag this Photo/Video/Note” button and enter the name of the person in the item.  You can even tag people who aren’t actually in the item, but be sure to only tag people who would be interested in this particular content, lest ye be spamming.  You must be friends with somebody through your Profie in order to tag them in an item.

7) Encourage People to Become Fans via Text Message: Facebook allows people to become fans of a page even if they don’t have their computer with them.  All they have to do is text “fan [PAGENAME]” to FBOOK (32665).  (This, of course, assumes that they have already integrated their cell phone with their Facebook profile.)

8) Add a Link to Your Email Signature: You include your phone number or even address in your email signature, don’t you?  Add your Facebook link, too – especially since you’ve now (after step #1) got a lovely, customized URL.

9) Put Your Facebook URL on Your Business Card (and All Other Printed Materials): Put your customized Facebook URL on everything – from your business card to your stationary to your prospectus to the back of your CD.  Of all the things you can print text message instructions on, wristbands are my favorite because they don’t get lost easily like business cards and people often still have them on later, like when they’re in front of their computer.  So if you participate in any events (concerts, trade shows, etc.), aim to get your Facebook URL on the wristbands.  You can have your own printed up by Trendy Wristbands.

10) Automatically Send Your Facebook URL to Your Twitter Followers: There’s a lot of controversy over the use of this last technique, which involves using a Twitter application like TweetLater or  TweetAdder to automatically send a Direct Message to anybody who follows your company.  The argument against auto-DMs is that they are really spam, and that social media ought to be used to build relationships through genuine human interaction, not automated responses.  Certainly, my own Twitter inbox is overrun with obnoxious promises that I can make millions a day through Twitter, so I sympathize with the spam argument.  The counter-argument is that simply alerting somebody who is connecting with you to another way in which they might also be able to connect with you is not nearly as offensive as false monetary promises.  (After all, they have clearly expressed an interest in connecting with you, so you’re just giving them more of what they want.)  Moreover, even if it is a bit spammy to send out the same message to all of your followers, who cares if it’s effective?  I am unwilling to categorically declare myself opposed to or in favor of auto-DMs (I use it for some clients but not others), so I’ll simply encourage you to tread very lightly if you do decide that this is a technique to try.

*Note that tips #8 and #9 can be used to promote your Twitter page as well.  So how do you promote your Facebook Page?